1158 The Morning After

1158 The Morning After

Maybe you remember back in the day when they kept condoms behind the drugstore counter.  Awkward for young boys, especially if the clerk was a woman, even worse if the woman was your neighbor, Mrs. Gabblebobble.

“Ummm... may I speak with the pharmacist, please?”

Of course, Mrs. Gabblebobble knew what you wanted.  But in kinder, gentler times she would either fetch the druggist or yell at you to “...get out of this store, you dirty little boy!”

If the clerk was a guy, it was a little easier.  You’d walk up to the counter with, say, a tube of toothpaste, a bottle of Listerine, a box of tissues and a roll of LifeSavers.  When the clerk asked if there was anything else you needed, you’d say something like “...no, I’m all set.  Oh, wait, I almost forgot.  And a three pack of Trojans.”

Nobody was fooled.  The other stuff would go home with you.  But all you really wanted were the condoms.

Now, there are open displays of them, with as many different choices as there are bottles in the shampoo aisle.

We’ve come a bit of a way since the days when birth control was an admission of sin committed or sin about to be committed or -- more likely -- sin hoped for.  But even then, a request from a 14 year old boy or an 85 year old man would be honored.

We’ve also come a long way since women have had to rely on men for conception prevention.   The diaphragm, the IUD, the Pill and the Morning After Pill are common.  Unlike condoms, these are prescription items.  And there are good reasons for three of them.  But until now, “Plan B” the emergency contraception/morning after pill was available over the counter except for those younger than 17 or 18.  They needed prescriptions and they needed parental permission.

The recent court ruling ordering the FDA to make “B” available over the counter to anyone put young girls in a position that young boys were in decades ago.   They now can buy the stuff, but they have to ask for it at the counter.  Mrs. Gabblebobble is still there, ladies.

This space does not advocate or encourage underage sex.  But underage sex happens.  If after completion and contemplation, Sweet Betsy from Pike, 16, decides she’d better make sure there will be no Betsy Junior growing down there... if she has the sense to take precautions after the heat of passion made her forget them, she should be able to.

The cost is zero if there’s a Planned Parenthood clinic nearby.  Otherwise, it’s about 40 bucks.  That’s a whole lot cheaper than a baby.  And it’s a whole lot easier to face the dreaded Mrs. Gabblebobble than it is mom, dad and your hypocritical former friends.

Shrapnel:

--It’s well known that Nassau County on New York’s Long Island can’t run it finances and has to report to a state panel for final say so over what it spends.  And we know that Nassau can’t run its Coliseum (See Wessay #1154.)  Now we learn it can’t run the county jail, either and has been ordered to appoint an outside panel to fix decades of mismanagement, abuse, inmate death and break down maintenance.

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

Please address comments, death threats and hate mail to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1157 The Corn Crisis

1157 The Corn Crisis

Do you remember when corn prices were high as an elephant’s eye?  Do you remember the Big Corn Scare?  They were going to divert almost all of it into making ethanol.  The world’s horses would starve.  The Jolly Green Giant would shrink to 5’8”, go on unemployment, then food stamps, then welfare and end his life living in a refrigerator box beneath the water tower in Le Sueur, Minnesota.  

But the farmers would get rich.  And your car would start faster in subzero winters.

Well, the farmers didn’t get rich.  They overproduced.  Ethanol as fuel was and is a bust.  Even with last summer’s drought, prices were shaky.  Now... they’re down right deflated.

There’s so much corn in storage they’re practically giving it away.

And that leads to another big question:  what’ll this do to the price of corn muffins, corn flakes, corn syrup, ink, wallpaper, antibiotics, paper plates, firecrackers and a long list of other stuff that is either part corn or uses corn in the manufacturing process.

Dumb companies will do nothing.

Smart companies will knock down prices.

Really smart companies will knock down prices a teeny bit, advertise their generosity and pocket the difference.

Meantime, the farmers will be asking the Green Giant where they can get their own refrigerator boxes.  Farmers net pennies on the bushel for this and everything else they grow.  Supermarkets make pennies on the bushel.  So where does the money go?

Middlemen and shippers. Nothing new about that.  Same deal is standard operating procedure in the meat and garment industries.

Right now, the corn biz is as corny as Kansas in August.  The high-eyed elephants in the field are sick to death of corn.  Your Flex Fuel Chevy truck just lost 20% of its resale value, which wasn’t much to begin with.

So... first the corn scare, now the corn crisis.  So much corn, it’s coming out of our ears.

(Did I really say that?  Sorry.)

Shrapnel:

--Nice to see the Leno/Fallon handoff will be handled well after all.  One small step for the timeslot, one giant step for Comcast, the often ham-handed cable company now with slightly fewer delusions about who runs things at NBC.  You create a monster, you gotta feed it.

--If you think the articles in the New Yorker Magazine are long, you’re right, but not as long as their reader surveys.  The latest goes on and on and on and on.  They’re trying to find the level at which people will keep paying for online content.

--Word to the wise: if you’re diagnosed with a life threatening disease, don’t write a New Yorker Magazine length article telling us you’re going into semi retirement and here “...are the plans for my next few years...” because it’s a jinx.  Roger Ebert, famous film critic for the Chicago Sun-times did that just the other day.  And he died yesterday at the age of 70.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1156 Born to Multitask

1156 Born to Multitask

So suddenly, everyone’s concerned about all those kids being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.  Scads of them.  Gazillions of them.  Every kid who can’t sit still for two minutes.  Every kid who screws up his third grade arithmetic test.  Every two year old who throws a tantrum and interrupts mom when she’s doing her nails or dad at a crucial moment, like when his team is about to break a tie in the 11th inning.

Some say it’s about time we recognized how widespread ADHD is.  Others say we’re overdiagnosing.

Still others say there’s no such thing.

Well, we early adapters, those of us who’ve lived into, say, our seventh or eighth decade with this no-such-thing, those of us whose brains were warped by chemical imbalances since the invention of dirt, know better.

There IS such a thing. But drugging generations of kids isn’t an answer.

Sure there are some who can’t function without Ritalin or Adderall.

Was that our doorbell or was that sound on the TV?

But not everyone.  Especially in the present high tech age.

You can get your internet calendar to send texts or reminders to your telephone.  You can use post-it notes so that when you think of something, you write it down, put it somewhere you have to see it...

Sure looks like rain

...and then do something about it.

One of the diagnostic tools the shrinks use is a patient’s ability to follow instructions, especially instructions with many parts.

Maybe it’s the fault of the way we’re instructed.  For example... break an instruction down into small pieces, as few as possible.

Yes, I understand.  What was the second part, again?  

Turn around and face the door, please...

This one?

How many doors do you see?

Uh... one?

It’s a tough way to go through life, but not impossible.

Those of us with this strangeness have to learn three things:

1.  We have this condition.

2.  It’s not our fault but we still can’t blame it for our shortcomings or failure to take responsibility for our actions or reactions or inactions.

3.  Oh, damn!  Are you sure there’s a third one?

Some rules:

1. Don’t bring your iPhone to a business meeting at the office.

2. Learn to recognize when you’re drifting off and stop yourself.

3. Document everything.

4. Tape everything else.

Our minds are always somewhere else.  We bore easily.  We’re probably good at something and have to find it and capitalize on it.

That’s a whole lot better than a life of questionable drug use and feeling sorry for ourselves.

Some big newspaper and ...uh... the CBS or the CDC or some outfit like that contributed to this report.

Shrapnel:

--They’re flying a “Red Flag Alert” in the neighborhood this morning.  Those of us unfamiliar with the term figure it must mean “The Russians Are Coming” or maybe the Tea Baggers.   But what it means is “we’re going to set the woods on fire and with wind conditions as they are we may not be able to keep the controlled burn controlled, so your house might burn down, sucker.”

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1155 No Body Cares or Peacocks Coming Home to Roost

1155  No Body Cares or Peacocks Coming Home to Roost

The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC.

Right about now, the folks in Philadelphia’s defensively and needlessly tall Comcast building are probably wondering why they bothered buying NBC.  

And the folks in whatever they’re next going to call the GE/RCA building in New York are wondering what strangeness is going to befall them next.  

Meantime, GE, the seller, is laughing all the way to the bank where it will deposit $14 billion in unmarked small bills now still stuffed inside a U-Haul.

NBC has trouble at both ends of the day and in the middle.

The Tonight Show soap opera continues. They could turn this into a daytime serial and do better in the ratings.

Leno’s in but he won’t last.  He lasted.  Leno’s out, but we’ll put him on at 10:30.  Conan’s in. Conan’s out. Leno’s back in but he won’t last. He’s lasting. Fallon’s in but the deal’s not done yet.

The Today show soap opera, another potential daytime drama, continues. Gumbel, Paulie, Norville, Couric, Lauer, Vieira, Curry, Guthrie.  The show is two hours.  No, it’s two hours with a third hour called “Later Today.” No, it’s two hours.  No, it’s three hours. No it’s four hours.

Today Show transitions used to be fairly smooth, at least most of the time.  Gumbel to Lauer; Couric to Vieira.  With Vieira leaving, there comes a quandary.  How can you possibly put Ann Curry, seasoned but intensely serious veteran correspondent, into the chair, but... after all the time she’s waited for the chance, how can you not?  

Too stiff for the frivolous stuff, they say.  The odd thing is that Ann can work a crowd outside Studio 1A as well as Hulk Hogan or Regis. But in a light-topic interview, she sometimes seems like she’s serving detention in the principal’s office.

What’s next, Roker flying solo?  Hey, wait.  That might actually work so they’ll never do it.  Or a duet with Roker and Anderson Cooper.  Nah.  That would work, too, so forget about it.  Anyone still have Ryan Seacrest’s phone number?

Both ends and the middle:  Falling ratings in the morning, no ratings in prime time and continued great ratings in late night?  What can we do to screw up the Tonight Show that we haven’t already done?  

David Sarnoff’s vision for RCA/NBC was simple and it worked:  supply everything needed between performer and audience.  Microphones, cameras, transmitters, receivers and the programs they carry. (Throw in some extraneous stuff like record players and the records they play, and -- for some unknown reason --  washing machines.)

GE’s vision for its acquisition of RCA was simple and it worked in spite of itself:  Put a finance guy in charge and let him cut cut cut.  When Bob Wright arrived at 30 Rock, he didn’t know where the men’s room was.  When he left, he had earned industry-wide respect and had learned fast how to make money and get ratings by putting on quality programs and junk, but good junk -- stuff people wanted to watch and did.

He left too early.  Or maybe he timed it perfectly, because afterward, it was mostly downhill, just not at the present-day’s speed of light.

Shrapnel:

-- As I turned the car onto my block the other day, I found myself humming the State Farm “Like a Good Neighbor” jingle.  Suddenly,  I was joined in the car by Warren Buffett with the lizard on his shoulder, Flo, the guy who drops shopping carts on cars (along with his shopping cart) and The General.  And as I passed her house, the State Farm agent who lives a few doors down stepped out of her house and flagged me down.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1154  The Bay Shack

(Moote Pointe, NY) -- You know what a bay shack is... it’s a little house near enough to the water for storms far milder than Sandy to damage.  Usually, they look unpainted because salt water and wind have a way of skinning vertical surfaces.  This particular bay shack is named in the inflated self-important language of bumbling and bankrupt Nauseous County, New York.  It is called The Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, located just north of Moote Pointe in Uniondale. (No one quite knows why they spell it that way.  Maybe it’s because it fits the signs better than colosseum.)

It is a ramshackle mess with a storied early history and an equally storied present.

It once was home to the New York Nets of the American Basketball Association when Dr. J., Julius Erving of Roosevelt, now 63, was the guy everyone wanted to be. It was home to the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League in those glory years when no opponent could get a puck past goalie Billy Smith, now 62, and guys like Potvin, and Bossy and Trottier were household names.

Well, the Nets got absorbed by the NBA and moved first to New Jersey and then to Brooklyn.

The Islanders haven’t won a game in the last 75 years and are about to join the Nets in Brooklyn.

And the Coliseum?  It was ramshackle from day one, and you couldn’t get there except by car and you had to pay for parking, but who cared... it was the Nets and the Islanders.  Glory!

Isles owner Charles Wang, now 68, and rich from a company of iffy reputation, Computer Associates, has been the ping pong ball in a game of “who can be stupider,” the Town of Hempstead or Nassau County in efforts to redevelop the land.  Granted, some of his proposals bordered on the looney and all of them required public funding.  A 61 story building and a new arena?  C’mon.  Okay, then two 30 story buildings and a new arena?  You crazy, or what? But some redevelopment was necessary, even the dumbest of the dummies in government conceded.

So, Wang picks up his sorry puck and heads for Brooklyn, where they have fans and subways.  And the crumbling Coliseum, less colossal by the day, is left to drift with such exciting attractions as the NYPD/NYFD charity hockey game, Romeo Santos (who?) New Kids on the Block and Mickey’s (Disney) Music festival.

Of course, the Isles are stuck there for a season or two more.  

The latest bedragglement?  A lawsuit charging workers have been exposed to asbestos.  It took three years to build the place starting in 1969 and EVERYTHING back then had asbestos, which generally doesn’t bother anyone unless they start stirring it up.  So NOW they sue?  Talk about beating a dead horse.

Shrapnel:

--Chinese lesson.  Wang’s name is pronounced “Wong” and the name Wong also is pronounced “Wong.”  But the names have different meanings with the former written 王 and the latter written 皇, a slight difference in sound not normally picked up by American ears.  The “a” is the same as the a in “amen” and the o is the same as the o in soap.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1153 How to Avoid a Seder

1153  How to Avoid a Seder

It’s a little too late this year.  But we have some tips you can clip and file for next year... a little advance notice, even though the more observant among us have several more opportunities to miss any but the first Seder.

The best way is to sleep through the entire day. Get sick, go to bed.  If you can’t get sick, fake it.

If you can’t do that, make sure you live in an area where there are few Jews.  If you’re invited to someone’s Seder, tell them “Oh, I’d love to go, but I already promised cousin Velvel I’d go to his house.”

Live in an area where the main grocery store doesn’t carry matzo or any of the other stuff... go to McDonald's.  Have the Big Mac without bread.  Pray first.

Sneak the bread out the door with you and eat it in the car, after dark.  No one will notice.  Unless they’re Jewish and also having McDonald Seders.

Oh... there’s also the “I forgot” excuse.  This one works better if it’s true.  “You know, my memory isn’t what it used to be.” But it’s on the calendar, so you have to be prepared to say you don’t often read the calendar or -- even better -- “I forgot to flip from February to March and you never know when these holidays are going to pop up.”

Now, about the guilt part.  We love to do guilt.  Do you suppose God has nothing more to do on Passover but kick butt and take names?  Forget about it.  He probably won’t notice.  And even if he does, you’ll probably never find out about it.

If you absolutely must go to one of these things, go early.  Sneak into the dining room or kitchen.  Take every copy of the Haggadah and carefully cut out every other page.  No one will know the difference.

Shrapnel:

--For anyone interested, the elephant in the COPD medicine ad is real but not really sitting on the chests of the actors.  Her name is Tai, she’s “over 40” (no woman admits her age,) is eight feet eight inches tall and weighs something around nine thousand pounds.  She also starred in the movie “Water for Elephants,” and several other movies.

--The digital age has brought changes to movies, always a casual  description.  The upper crust used to call them “motion pictures,” which is true but pretentious, or called them “films.”  But many of them don’t use film anymore, so how do you ask someone to go on a date...“You want to go see a digital?”

--Some people have too damn much money.  Steven Cohen is one of them.   He’s agreed to pay $616 million to settle an insider trading case. And then, reports the ever-reliable New York Post, he agreed to buy Picasso’s Le Reve for $155 million, which may be the highest price an American collector has paid for a painting.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1152 Trouble on Treasure Island or the Watch With No Hands

1152 Trouble on Treasure Island or The Watch With No Hands

News Item:  The European Union has reached tentative agreement to bail out ailing Cyprus, force most of the most crooked banks to close, dropped a proposed tax on individual deposits and potentially saved the country from bankruptcy.

In the old days in Nicosia, his name was Charalambos Kenthos.  Here in the states, he’s Charlie Kent.  Doesn’t fool anyone but they all assume he’s Greek, not Greek Cypriot because no one here knows the difference.

Charlie left the old country about the time the Euro became high fashion money, sometime in the early 90s.

Why?  “This is bogus.  If you’re a country, you can’t use someone else’s money.” The Cyprus Pound wasn’t terribly healthy at the time.  And now, all these years later, the Euro doesn’t look all that healthy either, especially from Charlie’s little island.

“The Greek Cypriots are shady and the Turkish Cypriots are not getting sunburned either,” says Charlie.  “We have more banks per capita than any other country in the E.U. and that tax the deposits thing?  Talk about your weasel deals!”

Charlie says the main business of banking in his homeland is money laundering.  “Who do you think has all the big deposits?  It’s Russian thieves, Turkish thieves, American thieves and anyone else who is lowlife enough to be unwelcome in Switzerland, the Bahamas, Italy, India and a half dozen African republics.”

The big money boys are the people pressuring the Cyprus banks and government.  The little guys  -- surprise, surprise -- don’t count. And what do the banks do with all that money?  Why they invest it in such lucrative, high return products as the Governments of Greece and Portugal.  Smart fellas, these bankers.

Charlie likens the EU to a watch with no hands... dozens of moving parts whirring away with furious speed and energy but function-free; making loud ticking sounds, being glanced at every so often just out of habit.

Shrapnel:

--Doubt as we may, there could be something to all this physical fitness nonsense.  Remember Jack LaLanne who lived to 96?  Joe Weider, the weight lifter guy, just passed away at a relatively young 93. Charles Atlas, creator of the “I was a 98 pound weakling” only made it to 82, so there’s hope for the rest of us.

--Homeopathic remedies are all the rage these days, the theory being lotions and potions of old are more effective than modern day pharmaceuticals.  This raises an important question:  Why has life expectancy risen steadily since the advent of real medicine?  The mystics of flower power don’t have an answer.

--Once people came up with the germ theory, made aspirin and started using Listerine as an operating room antiseptic, life grew longer.  Granted Big Pharma comes from the same philosophical base as the Cypriot bankers and has gotten out of hand, they’re still why 85 is the new 65.  Fixing bad chemistry with good chemistry still beats the useless witches’ brews the homeopathics would have us use.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013