1945 The Old College Try

Many of us enjoyed and profited from our college years... to a point. But it’s hard to understand how some people who go to a school, any school, just can't let go.

As the football season approaches, look at the people who come to the games. Middle aged and older guys and gals in RVs with banners in school colors, gathering to watch a bunch of knuckle draggers dragging their knuckles into combat that's not nearly as exciting as a low level video game, and waaay more expensive.

But it's not just the football crazies.  It's the frat boys and sorority girls who never let go of their I Phelta Thi sweatshirts and microskirts.  

They all look like the "before" pictures in the Nutrisystem ads.  They come on crutches and in Hoverounds, dragging their mascot flags, their dogs and their grandchildren behind them.

The hierarchies and cliques they either joined or formed as kids are still the templates for the ways they relate to the "outside world."

And then there are the ones that later get jobs at the school.  They run for seats on boards, they show off by how many buildings or events are named after their money.  

They join the faculty where they serve until they're numbed by tenure and write papers that the peer reviewers review and no one else reads.

They put out books no one buys except their students who have to and which are published by the (insert the name) University Press.

Later in life, what makes them think anyone will care where they went to school 50 years ago?  Oh! I went to Michigan State or Harvard or the London School of Economics or that great medical and baking school in France, the Sore Bun?

No one cares because you’re same schlump now as when you entered the class of 61. But you don’t have to act like it.

Sure it’s nice to reminisce about the good old days of beer pitchers at Ye Olde Watering Hole and arguments about capitalism v. socialism and cutting class to be with that “special someone” or studying like mad eight hours before the Lithuanian Literature 134 final.  

It is said that the “great universities” are where future leaders and forward thinking are formed.  If so, how’s that working out for us?

SHRAPNEL:

--The US Embassy to Israel has moved to Jerusalem.  It’s trump’s way of sticking it to the palestinians.  The net gain for the US: forcing the ambassador to commute to Tel Aviv where all but the ceremonial still is done.

--Ivanka attended the ribbon cutting and all the photographs show her standing there smiling like the Stepford Daughter.  Meantime, bullets are flying and blood is running in the streets.  It’s hard for this space to sympathize with the palestinians, but in this case we gotta.

--Guatemala has follow the US lead and moved its embassy to Jerusalem. Huh? Who even knew there was one?

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 2018

1944 There's an App for That

Soon we won’t have to do anything for ourselves anymore.  There’s an app for it.  Something on your smartphone that will do something you have to do and don’t like or want to do or couldn’t.

Let’s say you live in a high crime area and you’re out for dinner. All the neighborhood burglars are wise to your lights turning on and off at various times.  So they know when your living room light goes on automatically at sundown.

You no longer can fool them with a timer that turns your living room light on at a certain time. But now’s the time to go high tech.  What if the lights in various rooms went on and off at random times.  TV sets blared sounds first in the living room, then shut off and went upstairs where your bedroom TV went on and blared loud?

There’s an app for that.

You can be sitting at ringside at the Hotsy Totsy Strip Club … or the prayer meeting at church and using your smartphone turn your house lights on and off, ring your home phone seven times, run the “tub clean” cycle on your home laundry machine and even mimic the sound of a barking Irish Wolfhound, a dog no one who hears would dare to mess with.

But let’s not remain simple.  How about an app for washing the dishes, cleaning the oven, doing the laundry? Of course that would require the assistance of a robot or two.  So you may have to wait. Siri, Cordoba, and Google Assist aren’t that able.  Yet.

But wait. There’s always iLevitate. Yes!  So far it’s exclusive to Verizon customers with the iPhone XXIII.IV.  But soon it will spread to the other carriers.  The laundry will levitate its way to the washing machine.

And of course, you can control your washing with your smartphone anywhere there’s cell or wireless service. No problem.

Did you turn the coffee maker off before leaving the house? You can check.

There’s an app for that.

Of course new apps bring with them new hackers.  

How do you know your apps have been hacked?

Well, let’s say it’s mid February.  You come home, find the house at 28 degrees.  There are two possibilities:

1.    The furnace died.

2.    You’ve been hacked and some kid in Bulgaria turned your AC on or opened your electronic windows.

When the robo caller rings, wouldn’t you like to strike back?  Maybe play a Sousa March or send a loud and shrill tone back over the phone?

There’s an app for that.

Got a nasty neighbor?  Want to send a flurry of weeds to grow in his lawn?

Did you forget your anniversary or someone’s birthday?

Want to send a little 5,000 volt jolt to the guy who keeps talking or phoning when you paid 40 bucks for a pair of movie tickets?

All together now:  There’s an app for that.

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 2018

1943 The News Committee

The News Committee meets at noon.  It is the most egalitarian of groups, in which the credibility of no member is questioned.  No opinion is worth any more than anyone else’s. And everyone is equally loud.

The News Committee is completely transparent.  Every meeting is held in public.  On television.  Nothing up my sleeve.  No rabbit in my top hat.

“Just the facts, ma’am” has been replaced by a bunch of shouting hooligans arguing about (fill in the blank.)  How informative. How stimulating.

trump’s Russia connection, if any?  Michael Cohen’s toll booth in front of the oval office?  Just put a bunch of talking heads on split screen and that’s the news.

It’s easy. It’s cheap. It fills the giant maw that Ted Turner carved out for newscasting all those decades ago. Why send a reporter on an investigation and have her come back with a phone book size report? It just bores the viewers.  Bored viewers are no good. They fall asleep. They not only snooze through the report, they snooze through the commercials.  Sometimes, commercials on cable are the only true REM sleep anyone gets.

So fill the split screen with an exciting catfight featuring four people you’ve never heard of talking nonsense at major decibel levels.  Ted Turner isn’t rotating in his grave.  That’s because he’s not dead. Plus he owns Montana and that keeps him pretty busy, what with the conflicts between cattle ranchers and sheep farmers and mathematicians building bombs in woodland cabins.

Mostly, these committee shows are about politics, helping America to form its own opinions.  But imagine if they had a debate broadcast about … oh, say Pizza toppings.

OK, show bookers, get out your Rolodexes and start dialing.  Our new hybrid newsman Wolf Cooper is going to moderate.  So start with someone named Ray from New York because every New York pizza joint has “Ray” in its name.  Then get one of those deep dish guys from Chicago and maybe a girl.  Yes.  A girl.  Maybe Tammi Linden, age eight and a half from Marshfield, Wisconsin.

Ray: We put on any topping you want. What’s the big deal?

Old Towne Deep Dish: Ya gotta train ‘em. We don’t do toppings to order. WE’RE the experts.

Tammi: the real problem isn’t toppings. It’s light bulbs. My Easy-Bake needs a 100 watt bulb.  You can’t get those anymore.  Mom put in an LED bulb. It doesn’t get hot enough to make the ketchup bubble on the English muffin.

Old Towne: you’re pretty smart for an eight year old.

Tammi: I am eight AND A HALF.

Ray: what’s in that thing Olde Towne? It looks like pizza soup.

Olde: Soup is good for you.  What’s in that nan bread thing you make.?

Ray: That’s extra crispy thin crust you bonehead.

Tami: don’t fight please. It makes me want to cry.

Olde: You just go home and plug in that oven and…

Ray: And WHAT?

Hybrid Newsman Wolf Cooper: that’s all the time we have for…

Olde: How’d you like a pie in the face, Coop?

Tammi: you are not nice men. Any of you.

News by committee. Someone send Tammi a 100 watt bulb.  You know you stashed a bunch of them in the basement.

SHRAPNEL:

--Nothing to see, folks, just move along.  That’s the essence of NBC’s self investigation of allegations of widespread sexual predation in the byzantine corridors of 30 Rock. And we believe them because if it’s on TV, it’s gotta be right, right?

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 2018

1942 In Bibi's Shoes

It looks like a shoe.  But only the Tin Man can wear it because it’s made of metal. It looks like it’s on a dining room table, and it is.

This space is an unrelenting supporter of Israel’s right to exist even in the crosshairs of hostile well-armed neighbors.  And this space has been a tepidly enthusiastic supporter of the current prime minister, Benjamin “Bibi the Shoe” Netanyahu.

Until now.  The man seems to have lost his MIT-educated marbles.  Someone call Building Eleven and see if there’s a fix.

What’s the problem?  Well, he and his wife had the prime minister of Japan over for dinner one recent night.  It was an elegant meal prepared by Israel’s version of James Beard, Sergev Moshe, who looks a little like Bobby Flay.  You know.  Fit, handsome, famous and full of … himself.

In Japan as in other east Asian countries, one leaves his real shoes at the door and either walks in stocking feet or house slippers.  It’s a tradition born in the homes of rice farmers thousands of years ago.

How do you say this in Mandarin or Japanese: “Cheng, don’t you dare wear those muddy boots in the house!”

So Moshe makes a fancy dessert and serves it in shoe-like tin bowls.

Prime minister Abe didn’t say anything.  After all, he’s been hobnobbing with trump and even if some trump-itis rubbed off, his natural uber-politeness kicked in.

But the press both in Japan and Israel went ballistic. Well, the press in Japan went the Japanese version of ballistic.  The Israeli press blew a gasket. Enough steam to cause a mold problem.

You’d think a detail-oriented guy like Bibi, with all kinds of charges swirling around him, would be careful not to bring attention to himself for this unrelated but obviously stupid faux pas. It’s kind of pleasing, though, to publicly parade a guy who disproves the cliché that all Jews are smart.  And liberal. Fourteen-ish million Jews in the world, and you’re the best we can do?

TODAY’S QUOTE: “Bolton finally gets the war he’s always wanted.” -- Rachel Maddow.

SHRAPNEL:

--Unsurprisingly, those with sleep apnea have not risen up in protest against the awkward CPAP machines that they must wear at night. Surprisingly, no drug company has come up with a replacement pill for which they can charge ransom- level prices.  And just think of the ads they’d run with ten seconds of promotion and the rest a list of possible side effects, up to and including death.

--Comparing former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman with former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is wrong.  Spitzer paid women for sex. Schneiderman is charged with physical violence against women.  The first is a crimelet and nobody’s business but the second would be an actual crime.

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 2018

1941 Pay Here for Parking

Let’s say you need a haircut.  You drive to the barbershop and park.

Drop a coin into a parking meter, turn the handle and go about your business.  Check your watch now and then to make sure you’re not running out of time.  Ideally, return to your parking space either before time’s up or at least before the traffic patrol gets around with its book of tickets-in-waiting.

Those days are going the way of leisure suits and bowler hats.

First, they were replaced by electrical meters.  You still dropped coins into the slot, but the terrible burden of turning a handle was taken over by Con Ed.  And the displays became digital.

Now, comes the central pay station.  No more meters. Instead you pay into a large machine which is much more demanding than even that terribly burdensome crank handle.  You pays your money and you takes your choice. They put the machines near -- but not AT -- the parking space. One robot replaces a whole block of meters.

This sounds pretty simple.  It is not.  First you have to type in your license plate number.  Do you remember it?  Of course not. So, better write it on your hand before you head for the machine.

Okay, then there’s the keypad.  It’s not the same as your telephone and it’s not the same as your calculator.  It’s numbers 0-9 in a row.  The letters are not in the same order as your computer keyboard.  They’re in alphabetical order which has become counterintuitive.

OK, you’ve written your license plate number on your hand. You manage to slog your way through the input. Now the machine asks you how much time you want to rent.

You’d think you could use the same keypad to type out a figure.  But you’d be wrong. Instead, you are given a choice of predetermined times.

Some embrace logic. Others defy it.

Press 1 for 30 minutes.

Press 2 for 60 minutes.

Press 3 for 80 minutes.

What is 80 minutes? Figure it out.

Press 4 for 93 minutes.

Press five for more choices.

The choices become more obscure lengths of time.

All right. We’re getting there.  Ignore those folks in the line behind you.  They’ll get their turn. Eventually.

Click your choice of time.  Then get ready to pay.

Let’s say you pick 80 minutes. The machine asks you for two dollars and 75 cents.  Cash or credit/debit card.  Then you notice this little sand trap: “THIS MACHINE DOES NOT MAKE CHANGE.”

So you put in your dollar bills and fish around for some change.  You find you only have 35 cents.  So you put that in and the machine still has its electronic hand out.

Find a credit card to pay the remaining 40 cents.  Forty cents?  Will a card allow you to spend 40 cents? Most will. Visa and DisasterCard are not picky.  Even if it costs them more to process the transaction than the value of the actual transaction.  They have ways of getting even.

PLEASE INSERT YOUR CARD ALL THE WAY.

PLEASE REMOVE YOUR CARD.

Sounds like a reasonable request except that the card is in so deep it’s hard to pull out.  You manage.  But you were too slow.  So…

PLEASE INSERT YOUR CARD.

Eventually you manage to get it in and out of the slot at a speed that satisfies the machines demented desire and exacting standards.

VALIDATING CARD.

PLEASE WAIT.

PLEASE WAIT.

PLEASE WA...

Finally, the machine spits out a ticket and you’re on your way.

The good news is that the countdown doesn’t start until the ticket is spat.  So you still have 80 minutes.

Do you remember why you parked here?

Sure.  Um… oh yeah. Haircut. Hope there isn’t a long wait at the barber.

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

Please send comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this page is parody.

© WJR 2018

1940 The Analyst Call

Corporate honchos periodically hold teleconferences with stock analysts.  The idea is to answer questions and tell them what to expect so they can recommend appropriately to clients and burnish their commission checks if their predictions pan out, which they don’t much seem to.

So, here’s Elon Musk.  He’s making batteries, planning trips to distant planets and making an occasional Tesla car, some days even two or three.  He’s on the phone with the Wall Street crowd.  And they ask him about production problems.

Seems reasonable.  A bunch of Stockbillies want to know about production.  Tesla has mastered many previously “impossible” problems in the building of a fully electric car that runs more like a Corvette than a Model T.

What he hasn’t mastered is producing enough of them fast enough to satisfy demand.  So, okay with the newness and the innovation.  But behind the curve with something the rest of the auto industry has been reasonably good at for more than a century.

Improving production costs money. Lots of money.  And here’s Musk pawning the silverware and looking for those ads where Montel Williams offers you quick cash in your account “by tomorrow.”

Now, it’s rude to diss these analysts, because as a group they’re sensitive souls who cry easily. When it comes to dissing people, sensitive souls who cry easily are an easy target, unless, of course, they’re influential.

Stock analysts are influential.

So when Musk told them to buzz off about production problems, the tears began to flow.

And, purely coincidentally, Tesla stock took a 5-point-something percent hit.

TODAY’S QUOTE:

“We have no interest in satisfying the desires of day traders.”

The day traders got busy thereafter, hence the stock hit. And Musk turned on the questioners when he called the questions boring.

Not the way to avoid Montel, Elon.  

The takeaway:  Do your own analysis. You can’t be wronger than the consensus.  And think twice about what it means to be a public company with a lot of smart outfits going private.  Even if it means raiding their kids’ trust funds.

GRAPESHOT:

-The world needs more major-key peppy chamber music and fewer dour minor-key tearjerkers that sound like the music for Gregorian chants and Bach on Quaaludes.

SHRAPNEL:

--So, Swedish meatballs originated in Turkey?  But that’s okay because some Turkeys come from Mexico.  When trump finds that out, he’ll skip the traditional Thanksgiving Day turkey pardon.

Sponsored content:

Today’s post is sponsored in part by a grant from Cambridge Analytica.

Bankruptcy Sale to Begin

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We have some of the latest lightly used computer terminals and towers, snazzy desks and a wide selection of Eames chairs ranging from their famed “Mail Clerk” edition. Also available: A rarely used 2016 Aston Martin armored SUV (MSRP $3 million.) Make an offer.  And 15 terabytes of legally obtained (wink, wink) data on the voting habits of residents in Scarsdale, NY, Shaker Heights, OH and Bentonville, AR.

Viewing 9am to 3pm Tuesday, May 15.  Or call for details at 877-CA-BROKE.

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 2018

1939 Dictator of the Year

It’s that time of year again… when you get to vote for the winner of the Charles Chaplin Great Dictator Award.  Before we review the candidates, a tip of the hat and big THANK YOU to our 2017 winner, Raul Castro.

The voting last year was tight.  But Castro aced it once the Florida vote came in and the hanging chads discounted.  Our thanks our first runner-up, Omar al You Can Call Me Al - Bashir of Sudan who was in line to replace Raul should he have been unable to discharge his duties.

There are three contenders this year.  They are Kim Jong un of North Korea, Vladimir Putin of Russia and donald trump of the United States.

Of the three, Putin has been in power the longest and is in the best physical condition, though we take issue with the viral internet rumor that Kim and trump are practicing for this year’s Sumo matches in Tokyo.

Since future plans aren’t that big a deal in a contest like this, we’ll skip the rest of that part and get on to the eagerly awaited details.

AGE: Kim gets the nod for youthfulness.  At 37 he’s the youngest of the three and has been in power second longest after Putin.  Putin is 65, an age when many consider retirement.  We don’t expect that any time soon.  trump will be 72 this month, well past the age when he could start collecting a pension, but the money in his 401 K went to buy Pennsylvania and Florida in 2016 so he has to keep working. We know that because we’ve seen the tax returns, something the IRS and the American public has yet to do.

RUMP SIZE: Putin is out of the running.  And Kim and trump are too close to call, so we’ll give that a qualified tie.

GLOVE SIZE: Kim wears size small. Putin wears size medium.  trump buys XL but they reach his elbows.

IQ: trump never took the test even though it was a requirement at Heel Spur Military Academy.  But according to Breitbart and other reliable sources it’s “very high.”   Putin’s was measured during his job testing for the KGB.  The results are classified.  But he’s at least average.  Maybe a little above.  Kim scored low, but to be fair the test was not given in Korean so we have to account for the language barrier and call him “suitable” or “very suitable.”

MURDER: One of the most sought after benefits of the dictatorship industry is getting away with murder.  Our contenders all score well in this department.  Kim: The uncle who failed to clap enthusiastically enough at a speech. Putin: His enemies and discredited business partners are dying all the time. And Putin is "credited" with responsibility for the murders of former Soviet spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter according to reliable sources at the Washington Times, which rarely is quoted anywhere anymore.  trump: the English Language.

ADHERENCE TO ESTABLISHED NORMS: for this we use a scale of 0-10 with 10 being perfect and zero, well… zero.  Putin is following a 500 year Russian tradition.  The Russian norms have not changed since the mid 1500s, through all the czars beginning with Prince Ivan IV going through the Communist revolution of 1917 and continuing through the end of the Soviet era and the rise of Boris Yeltsin.  The economic system has been corruption, the military system powerful, the winters cold and the national pastime, vodka. Putin gets a 10. Trump talks a lot about breaking the old molds but has done little to actually break them.  Give him a 5 because the important agencies like the IRS, the NRA the CIA and the court system still work as well (?) as they ever did.  Kim IS the established norm and gets a 12.

SARTORIAL ELEGANCE: Putin looks decent in a shirt and tie.  Kim wears the standard Korean version of the Mao costume and they all (the suits, not the Koreans) look alike (except the purple one he bought in London.)  And trump looks like an orange Tootsie Pop stuck stem-first into the top of a giant eggplant with legs. 

TWEETABILITY: Here, trump is the clear winner. Kim doesn’t tweet and the Cyrillic iPhone is too bulky for Putin to carry conveniently.

FUTURE PROSPECTS:  (See section on age.)

So, there you have it.  The highs and lows of the candidates.  If you’re in the United States, be prepared to show a government issued photo ID at the polling place.  If you’re in North Korea, no vote is necessary, we’ll just give Kim your 27 million votes.  In Russia, step this way to vote for Putin.  For those who choose not to, the train to Siberia is on your left, please board through the entrance for Track Three.

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 2108