Cartoon: "Grand Avenue"

The little girl is doing her math homework. Two panels.

1. Q: It takes Sam 5 minutes to make a paper hat. If he starts at noon what time is it when Sam completes his third hat?

2. "Time for Sam to get a life," she thinks.

PARENTHETICALLY: I once could make a paper hat quicker than that, as did my dad every morning before starting work running the large printing press which spewed out ink and oil as well as the daily newspaper.

????: Why would someone abandon a storage unit containing several thousands of dollars worth of silver coins?

It must be truly gratifying to know you are saving the world

When the E-R went around asking, "How green are you?" at an Earth Day event, how surprising could it have been that the People on the Street (4/24) responded with expressions of pride about how self-satisfying and "above average" their contribution to society is? [It probably makes them feel all warm and fuzzy.]

My own "greenness" is somewhat less demonstrative and self-aggrandizing. I recycle aluminum cans because I want to recoup some of their cost to me. I divide my discards into garbage and possible recyclables, because I have two containers, and it's no big imposition to do so, although I am not convinced that it all doesn't just end up in the same landfill or the ocean.

I quit smoking [many years ago], not out of concern for the environment, but, selfishly, for my own health. I cannot afford solar panels, and T. Boone Pickens exploded the myth about windmills. I would not consider driving a converted golf cart or some little kiddie car, and I keep remembering that the electricity to power such vehicles is created by burning coal, natural gas, and/or petroleum, so what's the point?

I believe that supermarkets were created for convenience, and they should continue to provide paper bags for carrying purchases. I usually eat food which the latest science recommends, but it is difficult when the "current intelligence" changes all the time.

I do not wish to return to the 19th Century, a time before bicycles became children's toys, and were a mode of transportation, and I'm too old to ride a horse.

FYI: A BK chicken sandwich costs $3.59. With a coupon and the purchase of a small drink and fries, you get the sandwich FREE. The drink and fries are $1.59 each, plus $.26 tax. That's $3.44, when all you really want is the sandwich. Whoopee. . . .

Easter

Today is a holiday created by organized religion to honor events which may or may not have occurred over 2,000 years ago. It ranks on the believability scale about on a par with the theory of evolution which was postulated about 150 years ago.

I started my celebration late last night by watching a TV show which reminded us that Jesus walked the earth for 40 days after he supposedly arose from the dead. They displayed a picture which someone had created, showing him in a somewhat zombielike state. Bed called before I saw the end of that nonsense.

Earlier today, I watched Dish Earth, which confirms the existence of the planet by showing a satellite photo of it all day and all night. The music in the background was, appropriately, "The Messiah."

Happy Easter.

Finally

After a week of spotty newspaper deliveries, today, I finally received both papers with all their parts, free of puddle water. I pray such service will continue from the person who is replacing The (old) Paper Gals whom I annually tipped generously, but who apparently have retired (or died). Possibly the 365-day-a-year grind or the $4+ gasoline did them in.

I complained to both newspapers a total of three times, because I have plenty of free time to do that. The young lady at the E-R reminded me that it is dark in the early morning, as though I hadn't realized that. I forgot to mention My Street Light which bathes a portion of the driveway in illumination, but I did cite the fact that I, myself, had thrown newspapers in the past, and I never deposited one in a puddle.

Momentarily, I thought I might call or email someone and thank them for the improvement, but then I asked myself, "Do you thank people for doing what they're supposed to do?" Besides, it's only one day. If it continues, I can always send a monetary reward at Christmas time. I'll always remember those two people who recognized my faithful service.

FYI: This afternoon's Chicago Cubs baseball game is being bombarded by Lake Michigan seagulls. Not having had WGN before, I was unaware that occurred.
P.S. They may be called simply "gulls." One of us might do some research.

Soporific

It was approaching midnight when the movie began. Although it was almost my bedtime, I was intrigued by the title, "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" (1975) TCM described the plot as involving a single mother of a teenage boy who leads the life of a lonely young widow, except that each afternoon she welcomes a paying gentleman to her bedroom. It's a Belgian production by the famous Chantel Akerman and stars the popular Delphine Seyrig. I had to start watching.

As the woman went about her daily routine, I was beginning to prepare to stay up to see where the story was going. Then, she took a bath. I watched her sit in the tub for at least 15 minutes. Tastefully posing in profile, she soaped her upper body. Then she rinsed the same area, carefully caressing herself in the process. Fifteen hygienic minutes. . . . Apparently, the story wasn't going anywhere. I, on the other hand, went to bed.

(If I had stuck it out, I now know that I would have had to endure 201 total minutes. Do you suppose Monty Python's "Fat Belgian bastards" are into that kind of thing?)

A different kind of birther

I am less concerned with whether President Obama was born in the United States than I am with whether or not his mother was an American citizen. I believe the Constitution should be amended to insure that automatic citizenship be conferred ONLY upon those who have at least one parent who is a citizen.

I thought it had always been that way. Surprise, future candidate Trump.

Watch out?

Recently, AT&T insisted upon giving me a new, small, self-contained, hand-held electronic device which takes pictures, and, parenthetically, makes phone calls. I come from a time when a telephone was a black, two-part, bakelite instrument, consisting of a larger part which was attached to the wall by an insulated, cloth-covered wire, and a smaller portion which was connected to the aforementioned "base" by a shorter wire.

My family's first phone number was 89413. That was actually more than the three digits popular in Mayberry, but then, we lived in a town of over 100,000. Because of that, our number eventually grew to CHerry 89413. I don't recall when an area code was added, because I had been to college and the Army, and off to three other States by then.

As I write this, I am looking at a murder victim on TV's Criminal Minds taking a picture of herself with her cellphone, and inadvertently capturing the image of her soon-to-be killer lurking behind her. And now, I have one of those phones.

Should I be looking behind? . . . arghh. . . .

UPON FURTHER REFLECTION: The number may have been 34581. One of those numbers was the one at Busi's family compound. (I guess I survived.)

CNN

Because the recent election was so satisfactory, I have been able to rest easier about the possibility of impending financial doom; and because I now have the Dish Network, I have been allotting an inordinate amount of blogging time to surfing the hundreds of channels available. For instance, two shows are particularly addictive and surprisingly entertaining. One involves the sale at auction of abandoned storage units, an activity which was part of my employment for 11 years, and another in which young people (many of them age 25-35) buy houses valued at $300,000 or more in a down economy. I really envy them the beautiful homes in scenic and exotic locations which I have never been able to afford. I have apparently developed covetousness in my old age.

Yesterday, in passing, I stopped at CNN for the first time. One has to be brain dead to go there deliberately, but I was struck by a teaser about how French President Nicolas Sarkozy has suddenly grown a pair, and is demonstrating a surprising strength of character which they attribute to his desire to be re-elected. I say it's a result of a general French resistance to that abominable law outlawing smoking in bars and restaurants. If you've been there lately, tell me: Have the French actually paid any attention to that nonsense?

Before I saw that segment, however, I had to suffer through Wolf Blitzer (Lie: real name Schlomo Lipshitz) interviewing two members of Congress, one from each party. He repeatedly asked the childish question. "Do you think it's fair that GE pays no taxes?" Both Congressmen deftly avoided responding to such ignorance, for which, of course, canis lupus provided no corroboration, and he was finally obliged mercifully to move on. I doubt he has given a moment's thought to the fact that GE, its subsidiaries and corporate partners, provide millions of jobs for American workers, and that he could also share in the largess by merely buying a few shares of GE stock. Liberals have their own brand of covetousness which includes not only envying their betters but yearning to punish them for being successful.