1784 The Name Game

Photo: Oldsmobile-Pontiac-Saturn of Moote Pointe, NY

“Inspired” by our look at the Hep-C drug Harvoni, our thoughts now turn inward, somehow typical of almost anyone in the second decade of the 21st century, though gauche in earlier times.

To put it bluntly, I don’t like my name.  Never have.  In the 1940s, in Queens, every other kid was named Jim or Joe or John or Tom or Charlie.  But “Wesley?” Yuk! People then named Wesley (I know of only one) got beaten up a bit but grew up tough.

When Johnny Cash recorded A Boy Named Sue I found my anthem.

Plus what’s a Nice Jewish Boy from New York doing being named for the founder of the Methodist Church?

In those days we shopped at Macy’s which is named for… R.H. Macy.  Or at Penney’s which is named for James Cash Penney. Or at Bloomingdale’s, Alexander’s or Klein’s, all named for their founders.

Now we shop at Target. Named for… ? A Target.

We drove Pontiac Chieftains or Dodge Coronets or Chrysler Windsors or Ford Victorias.  But then came the Oldsmobile Toronado.  The what? GM admitted the name was meaningless. Thus began the entry of nonsense syllables into the big time.

But nothing beats the names of today’s pharmaceuticals.   What does Harvoni mean? Or Latuda or Lunesta or Entresto or Crestor or Xiidra Pradaxa or even over the counter stuff like Zantac or Tylenol?

Why do they call it Aspercreme when it doesn’t contain aspirin?  And for that matter, why do they call it aspirin?

What is the source of these bizarre names?  We’ve found it. It’s a think tank based in Xenia, Ohio. And it is called The Jargonian Institute.  Scholars sit around conference tables from morning until night, sipping high test sherry from etched crystal and come up with new names only after they’re one notch away from unconscious.

Smuggled copies of the institute’s internal newsletter, “Jargonia Today” explain the way these geniuses work.

The original process was letter substitution.  Take a common word and change a vowel for another one. The pioneering Olds Toronado was originally Coronado. Harvoni can easily be constructed from Harmony. The pain reliever and hangover remedy Tylenol could have built from tie-one-on. The Toyota Camry is close enough a relative to comely.

Another way to pick names is to throw darts at a map. The Kia Sorento.  The Beach Boys. Lyme disease.  Ebola. Bikini.

Or you can do both: Newarktorine.

Some names are just plain made from nothing. The student loan company Navient couldn’t possibly occur in nature.  And there’s always Exxon.

The names need not represent anything so it’s possible the Jargonians are stockpiling candidates for future use.

And with the output of new drugs likely to skyrocket when the White House shuts down the FDA, there’s plenty of potential market.

TODAY’S QUOTE:

-“CBS used to stand for the Columbia Broadcasting system. Now it stands for nothing.” - Andy Rooney.

Grapeshot:

-So far, Bannon hasn’t lost his job but he is considered as under (White) House arrest.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this page is fake.

© WJR 2017

1783 Price Check

Photo from Gilead Sciences

There’s been a lot of advertising lately for a drug that is said to fix you up if you have hepatitis C, which is no fun, we’re told.

Some of the ads simply say if you’re a baby boomer you have a decent chance of having this affliction, so get tested. OK.  Common sense.

Some of the ads are designed to scare the daylights out of you, but these normally have the good sense to ease your tensions by offering you a treatment … maybe even a cure.

The website WEBMD is among the jeer-leaders for newer drugs.  They warn against the possible results.  So does the ad for the widely advertised Harvoni.

As they often are, this is a splendidly produced commercial.  What they don’t tell you… never tell you is what these things cost.

Sometimes they suggest there are available discounts.  

But here at the Wessays™ Secret Mountain Laboratory, the research department comes up with a cost figure at your local pharmacy.

FDA Warning: the rest of this post contains bone rattling, mind blowing information. Reading while standing is not recommended.

A 12 week supply, purchased without a coupon is Ninety-four thousand 500 dollars. That’s written out so you don’t think the figure $94,500. Is a typo.  

It’s cheaper in Canada.  $80,000. Wow, what a bargain.

It’s cheaper in England. £39,000 about 48,700 USD.

It’s cheaper in Egypt.  $1,200 US

And the winner is?

India: $900.

So, the good news is if you lived in India, you’d pay less than 10% of the US price. The bad news: You’d live in India.

Chances are your health plan -- if you still have one -- doesn’t cover much of this.  There’s a steep co-pay and there are coupons to cover that.

But if you were born in the earliest years of the boomer era, you get medicare.  And your Part D coverage makes you ineligible for the factory co pay rebate.

Is the cost of this stuff extreme?  Well, if you ask the company of course not. But to most of us, it is.

Let’s say you take it for 12 weeks by raiding your IRA or selling your house and moving into an extra large mailbox at the UPS Store.  And let’s say 12 weeks doesn’t do it for you.  How many 12 week periods in a year? Four and change.

Maybe move to India.

TODAY’S QUOTE:

-(It was) “a very, very successful mission,” -- D. Trump speaking after the US exploded the most powerful non-nuclear bomb ever over a tunnel system controlled by ISIS in Afghanistan and before there were any reports of death, wounding or damage.

GRAPESHOT:

-Is “very, very” a double positive and therefore self cancelling?

SHRAPNEL:

--All that infighting among various Murdochs about whether to fire Bilious O’Reilly is the kind of drama corporations like to keep out of the public eye. Too late.   Advertisers bailed like rats deserting the ship.

Note to readers:  Monday, inspired by Harvoni, we’ll explore some of the strange names we’ve given people places and things.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this page is fake.

© WJR 2017

1782 Once a Hero, Now He's on Trial

(LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS) -- 5Pointz is an art museum.  But not the kind that raises jillions from the city’s genteel giving class.  And not the kind whose curatorial infighting makes it to the gossip column in the Times Arts & Leisure section.

Queens Blvd Underground photo

It’s a quarter million square foot factory on Davis Street in Long Island City’s inner core where the map looks like a med school chart of the digestive system. You can see it from the elevated 7 train, the Flushing IRT as most still call it.

5Pointz it the self proclaimed graffiti capital of the western world, though the movers and sprayers would rather you didn’t think of it as “graffiti.” Smacks of west coast street gangs.  The art is completely legal, done with the advice, consent and permission of both the building’s owner and the city.

Landlord Jerry Wolkoff told the artists it was fine with him if they did their Aerosol act on his walls.  It made the building famous.

Meantime, Wolkoff also rented space to artists and charged them next to nothing.  But somewhere along the line, the hero landlord decided 40 years of more or less vacant space was enough and he’d sell to developers.

In darkness came the white washers and white washed over the art on the building. Stunned the next morning, the artists threatened court action, saying he could have/should have let them know ahead of time so they could remove such that could be harmlessly taken off the building.

It didn’t help that the city had gotten on Wolkoff’s case because he put up partitions for artists’ spaces on some of the inside floors and did it -- Heavens! -- without permits.

Unheard of.

No one’s ever done that before.  Make changes inside a 125 year old former water meter factory and not bring in the building inspectors?  Never!

But the artists wanted more than just the retro-right, probably meaningless, to whup him in a courtroom surrounded only by two teams of lawyers, one in which no one wore a suit you can buy for under two grand.

No. They want a jury trial.  And now, a federal judge says yes, there will be one.

TODAY’S QUOTE:

-“I have made mistakes but I never had a sexual relationship with her.” -- Recently resigned former Governor Robert Bentley (R-AL) shown here with Rebecca Mason at the Intercontinental Hotel in Washington where they were “attending a conference” in February, 2014.

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I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

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© WJR 2017

1781 Sleepy Time Gal and Trump the Therapist

Therapist In Chief. NBC News

It’s sad to contemplate. But the day may come that Ruth Bader Ginsburg will nod off during deliberations or oral arguments and never awaken. Sure hope not. But it’s possible.

And if she does, the balance of the court will move even further to the right than it did when the sneak Gorsuch replaced the Jolly Pirate Scalia. (The swearing in is today.)

At that point you can write off the US Supreme Court as not only writing opinions in tongues but also thinking in tongues.

Ginsburg is sound of mind, right on most issues and plays well with other justices.

With Gorsuch, at least Coke Can Clarence has someone to not talk to and they can have play dates after work each Friday.

Oh. And we get another “pro life” guy who puts law ahead of life and thinks people should freeze to death because driving freight trucks is a choice and the drivers should have to live with it. Even if they’re snowbound and their trailer breaks down and they detach the tractor part and head for the warmth of a 7-11.

But the Supreme Follies are just a symptom of the times and in a way, liberating, though not as liberating as our so-called president.

You may not realize it but the Tweeter-in-Chief also is therapist-in-chief, conducting mass psychological therapy sessions that many Americans badly need.

And don’t worry about health insurance. Your sessions (!)  are covered even if some cement head from Kentucky or Wisconsin snatches away your health insurance because sickness is a choice and you have to live with it.

The Twitter therapy king gets you on the couch and uses everything from fairy tales and promises to regulating you while deregulating his business to train you to not care.

And not caring is liberating.  Take that from one who has pretended it for 75 years and has now actually started to practice it with the president’s winning combination of shock therapy and behavior modification.

GRAPESHOT:

-Hang on, Notorious RBG, we need you now more than ever.

-The children on SCOTUS need a mommy or daddy, else they are urchins run wild.

-The infant in the White House is what happens when you spare the rod and spoil the child.

SHRAPNEL:

--Some enterprising pharmaceutical company will soon come up with a new wonder drug.  It won’t cure anything.  But it will have all the side effects the lawyers have come to know and love.

--A musician heading from Washington DC to Chicago bought an extra seat for his cello but was kicked off the flight because American Airlines people said it’s a safety hazard.  Few cellos are weapons of mass destruction.  Violins, banjos, autoharps accordions and clarinets are another matter entirely.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this page is parody.

© WJR 2017

1780 The Life of O'Reilly

1780 The Life of O’Reilly

Bill O’Reilly’s yearbook photo. Chaminade High School for Boys, Mineola NY. (1967)

At the height of his own fame, Keith Olbermann called Bill O’Reilly Bill-O the Clown and often elevated him to the top of his nightly feature, “Worst Person in the World.”

But O’Reilly, the Fox News pasha of poppycock, is getting pounded for what appears to be “doin’ what comes naturally” at his workplace.

Ah, yes.  Fox, Rupert Murdoch’s wellspring of money he can use to keep the London Sun, the New York Post and other highbrow presses rolling.

It’s the place that fired co-founder Roger Ailes for trying to score with the ladies who didn’t wish to reciprocate. We know who didn’t. We don’t know who -- if anyone -- did.

Separated at birth? Phineas T. Bluster (L) and Roger Ailes.

The Ailes and the Bill-O cases cost Fox in the millions.  But Bill is the top ratings dog in the fantasy world of Fox, so what happens next remains to be seen. For now, his sponsors are clawing at each other to reach  the exits like patrons at an after hours nightclub fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist loft.

Grist for the rumor mill: Bill-O is finished.  Bill-O’s ratings will tank.  Nothing will happen.

Fox plays blindsided and offended that any such harassment could happen on its soil. And when it fails to convince anyone with its crocodile contrition, eventually delivers what crooked cops call “the pad” --  though not in the traditional unmarked envelopes but in a long parade of individual checks verging on but not quite making ten grand each.

At least this benefits sexually harassed women because this case, runaway inflation is good for the victims who formerly had to settle for chump change and bus fare.

Of course, money isn’t the answer. The picture some guys have of women are kind of cromagnon. What’s wrong with that view?  Well, it may disprove Darwin.

Bill-O denies all the accusations but has shelled out some of the comp money on his own.  After all, President Trump has called him a “good person,” whom he “knows well.”  (And later is likely to deny the “knows well” part.)

TODAY’S QUOTE:

-“Jon Stewart hires people that he thinks are funny.  That’s it.  That’s the only requirement.” -- Olivia Munn

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SHRAPNEL:

--McDonald’s is getting out of the cryogenic burger patty business by substituting fresh beef for frozen in its Quarter Pounders. Do you think the frozen beef came from cows that died during WWI and and stuck alongside Walt Disney in the Kelvinator?  Chances are you won’t taste a difference, especially with all the condiments they use to smother the patty.

--Amazon.com is killing Staples which hasn’t shown an operating profit in about ten years according to Bloomberg News.  Why, then, would anyone want to buy if the current owners actually decide to sell? Unless it’s Amazon seeking more warehouse space.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this page is parody.

© WJR 2017

1779 The Nuclear Option

Little men in the NCAA have a “nuclear option.” They can cause a member college to miss one or more seasons of play in their lucrative competitive sports. That’s hardly the end of the world. It just hurts pocketbooks and pride and vanity.

Smaller men (and women) in the US Senate have a “nuclear option.”  They can change rules and move the goalpost, the goal being the confirmation of a candidate for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

The Democrats, small and disorganized, used it for other smaller things back in the day.  The microscopically endowed Republicans are apparently ready to do that now with the confirmation of the toxic Neil Gorsuch.

Wait.  Neither of these are nuclear options.

THIS

Is what a nuclear option looks like.

And this:

Chernobyl rescue workers. Waking Times Photo.

Now you’re talking NUCLEAR.

The half life of language is shorter than the half life of Uranium 238 and sometimes the shelf life of a quart of milk. When we apply the horror of an atomic explosion or the meltdown of a power plant to lead- walled collegians, US Senators and others on the dole, we lose the meaning.

Gorsuch will not give anyone radiation poisoning. His opinions may eventually lead to bad results, even bad results on a large scale.  But you won’t need a radiation space suit to visit your daughter at the back alley women’s health clinic’s combination coat hanger storage closet and recovery room.

So how about we try to call these “nuclear options” what they really are: theater, bullying, foot stomping from a crowd whose battle cry is “get your dog off my lawn.”

TODAY’S QUOTE:

-“You measure your people and take action on those who don’t measure up.” -- Neutron Jack Welch whose version of the nuclear option affected thousands of workers.

SHRAPNEL:

--The White House reportedly is thinking about dropping bar association ratings of its nominees for judge. Gorsuch got the highest rating, “well qualified.”  Others may not, and that would get in the way of confirmation by lifting the last vestige of authority behind rejections of future Harrold Carswells and Clement Haynsworths.

--The Phantom Grammarian of Bristol, England remains unidentified.  But his work is obvious as he pastes correcting stickers over signs in store windows.  Whom is this guy, anyway’s?

--Not since Stella Liebeck won beaucoup bucks after burning herself on a hot cup of McDonald’s coffee in 1994 has there been a suit this stupid.  A fellow from Boston sued Dunkin Donuts and won.  Turns out when he asked for butter on his bagel, they shamefully gave him margarine.

GRAPESHOT:

-Question marks continue to hover over Bain Capital now “exploring” whether to sell limping office supplier Staples according to the Boston Globe while still wondering how to turn debt-drenched iHeart Radio into a silk purse.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this page is parody.

© WJR 2017

1778 And the Winner Is

1778 And the Winner is…

Nobody.  This by way of introduction to this year’s Passover Matzoh ratings.

Things must be tough in the bakery business.  The bad news is every brand tested at the Wessays™ Secret Mountain Laboratory came up short.  The good news:  the packages are getting smaller.

So without further ceremony (because there’s way more than enough of that at every Seder) here are the ratings.

STREIT’S usually is the best of a bad lot but this year wins but three stars.  This stuff is produced in New York and evidently aged in oak casks like a fine grape juice.  This year’s crop is brittle, dry and generally icky.

YEHUDA, imported from Israel where in colloquial Hebrew the word means constipated. Yehuda again lives up to its well deserved reputation as cardboard- like and brittle even by the standards of this baked good. It’s not baked good.  It’s barely baked at all.

MANISCHEWITZ, our perpetual last place major brand is about as it always is, proving the water in New Jersey is no worse than the water on the Lower East side or in Haifa.  This is the company that coined the market on “baked stale.”  And their secret has never been fully revealed.

Of course, matzah, especially Passover matzo is supposed to be stale.  But Manischewitz is the only brand that doesn’t have to be left out before it’s wrapped to get that Kosher For Passover crumble down pat.

Understand that we rate only these brands because they’re pretty universally available and consistent because they’re made by machine. But there are neighborhood bakeries here and there that make the stuff by hand.

So if you’re inviting guests for first Seder, you might want to try such of that as you can find. It doesn’t taste any better.  But you stand a chance of getting something in which most of the edges aren’t burned and you can say your matzas was hand crafted.

GRAPE (WHINE) SHOT:

-Did we miss any of the different spellings of the passover food item and if so please let us know.

-Awful no matter how you spell it.

-Transliterated so you can spell it any way you want.

-Can something be “pretty universal” or is that as bad as “very unique?”

Shrapnel:

--Here’s one sure way to know the chaos of life in the world of 2017 is real.  In a well ordered universe it would be impossible for UConn to be eliminated as one of  the final two in the NCAA Women’s basketball March madness. But it happened this past Friday when they lost to Mississippi State 66-64 in overtime, ending a 111 game winning streak along with hopes for a fifth consecutive national championship.

SPONSORED CONTENT:

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

Additional reporting by Affi Khoman in Crown Heights.

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this page is parody.

© WJR 2017