Obesity Optimizer

Getting too thin? Help is on the way! Peppers Cafe, a part of a local restaurant in my town, is now serving what they call "The World's Largest Green Chile Cheeseburger". Forget the "Two all beef patties" relic of yore. This new entry has one patty - a full pound of ground beef - served on a ten-inch bun!

Wow! Just what our fat population needs!

It's on the menu at $18.95, plus tax and tip.

Bad people and REALLY bad people.

For some reason, bad people are given more attention than good people. History books detail the evil deeds of people like Adolph Hitler, who personally caused death and pain to so many. But history ignores millions of others who spent their entire lives as good citizens, who dealt with their fellow man according to the kind of compact described by the philosopher Epicurus (342-271 B.C) 'not to harm or be harmed'.

But history also ignores - or incorrectly records - the deeds of those I see as really bad people. My all-time leader on that list is one Rachel Carson. Back in 1962, Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring. That book is often cited as the birth of the modern environmental movement. Rah Rah!

But the one thing Silent Spring really accomplished was the worldwide ban of the insecticide DDT. Carson advanced the not conclusively proven belief that DDT caused birds to lay eggs that would not hatch because the shells were too thin.

But, the ban on DDT gave a new lease on life to the anopheles mosquito, the conveyor of malaria. Before the ban, malaria was almost eradicated. Since the ban, millions have died from malaria. It is estimated that 1,000 African children die from malaria every day. That makes Hitler's death camps seem small by comparison.

Today, more really bad people are at work. Take the U.S. Congress' House of Representatives. That body just passed the so-called 'Cap & Trade' energy bill. The bill they passed was 1,200 pages with a 300 page amendment, that none of them had read. Not only was it unreadable, some experts are now saying it was not even written at the time of the vote. Some group of persons, with some kind of evil motive, sat at word processors and ground out 1,500 pages of gibberish which had no intelligent meaning. Then, those really bad people used the power we had in good faith given them, to advance that to become the law of the land! A fully enforceable law they would slam down on us.

How bad would that law be? That depends entirely on what the final bill will say. A few things are certain. We will never know who the final authors/editors will be. The president who would sign it will not have read it. Some people, somewhere, would become very rich because of it. More would become poor because of it. Not exactly the compact Epicurus had in mind.

Priorities???

I liked Michael Jackson. I thought he was an extraordinary talent and have often said that when you practice something from the cradle you will get very, very good at it. Jackson did that.

I never believed any of the pedophile charges. A famed attorney once repeated endlessly to a jury: "If it doesn't fit you must acquit". In my opinion, the charges of child molestation against Jackson never did fit. Not even close. Like much of the world I was saddened by the death of this lonely famous man.

Now, can we stop talking about him?

When Dwight Eisenhower died, I was General Manager of a radio station in Salina, Kansas, just 25 miles from Eisenhower's home town of Abilene, Kansas. Ike was well liked everywhere. He was especially well liked in Kansas.

General Eisenhower was the Allied Supreme Commander in Europe in world War II. He engineered the Normandy invasion, which liberated Europe. At wars end, Ike was elected president. His first act, even before inauguration, was to go to Korea and stop the killing in the Korean War which Harry Truman had exacerbated but could not end.

Eisenhower then presided over an eight year presidency of peace and prosperity. People often refer to that period as a ho-hum presidency, but Eisenhower gave us a balanced budget. For younger readers, that means the government did not spend more than it took in. Amazing.

Perhaps Ike's greatest legacy is the Interstate Highway system. Before Ike, we made our way across country on two-lane highways. With steep hills, big trucks were slowed and there were few passing opportunities. I have driven from Kansas City to St Louis behind a big truck almost the entire journey. Get an opportunity to pass one and you soon overtake - and are stuck behind - another. Ike realized this could be a fatal obstruction to the rapid movement of military forces in the event of a national emergency, and initiated a nationwide system of high speed, limited access highways. The Interstate Highway System.

Dwight Eisenhower was a very important leader in our nation's history.

What has this to do with Michael Jackson? When Eisenhower died, I stopped the broadcast of all commercials on my radio station and programmed only quiet, respectful music as a memoriam to this great former general and former president whose hometown was well within our coverage area. I was widely criticized for this act. Even some of our station's stockholders were critical. So, after only a few hours time, I resumed regular programming.

Harry Truman once said he was amazed at the celebrity accorded the office of the president. I am amazed at the much greater attention and devotion heaped upon entertainers and athletes. Michael Jackson died. That is very sad. Now shut up about it. Time to resume regular programming.

Only in America?

Heading out for my bike ride at 5:30 this morning, I loaded my bike on the back of my old Cherokee, then picked up the newspaper lying at my feet in the driveway. The headline read: 'Crowds Pack In for 'Transformers' .

What the heck are 'Transformers'? Maybe some kind of new and highly advanced military gear? After all, the Physical Sciences Laboratory at NMSU does operate a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) Test Facility near here. Just over the mountain is White Sands Missile Range where the U.S, tests and tests shooting down missiles. Included there is HELSTF, the High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility, where even the Israeli government tested shooting down missiles or rockets with a laser. Twenty five miles north the new Spaceport is under construction. So, public demonstrations of new technological marvels are often held.

The headline was intriguing, but the morning bike ride in the desert was more appealing. Don't think riding in sand among cactus... I ride on paved streets and roads. But the cool, dry air of a pre-sunrise summer morning in our desert climate, may be the most appealing climatological experience on the planet.

I put the newspaper in the garage, and backed out of the driveway. The radio was on in the Jeep, and was tuned to a talk show. The host was talking about a new movie he had just seen, called 'Transformers'. Aha! Our newspaper had a headline... a front page, "A" section headline, about a movie, a creation of Hollywood, the world capital of foolishness?

First, the radio host was predicting how much money this thing would make. Over one hundred million this weekend, he guessed. Then he talked about the movie. Explosions? Biggest ever. Did you see 'Armageddon'? that was nothing. 'Transformers I'? That was nothing!

So, people may spend $100 million this weekend to see a bunch of filmed explosions? Well, I may well go see a fireworks display on July 4. But at least it will be free, and I don't have to put up with some incomprehensible story line. Just watch the pretty flash. Hear the big boom.

We complain when asked to pay $3.00 for a gallon of gasoline (which will push our car twenty miles down the highway) but happily pay $2.00 for a 16-oz. bottle of water - that translates to $16.00 a gallon!

Maybe the difference is that we don't have to go see the movie. We don't have to buy the water. It's okay to waste time or money of your own free will. Just don't create a situation where we have to waste it!

Now we know!

Those brilliant people who figured out that humans (and now animals) are causing climate change which will warm up the planet, melt polar ice, cause oceans to overflow, etc., etc., have further enlightened us.

After setting in motion foolishness that will condemn us all to driving golf cart-sized autos on our Interstate hiways, the latest claim is that the real problem is animal flatulence. So, they are threatening what some in the U.S. Congress are calling the "Cow Fart Tax"!

There are a lot of cows in America (not to mention hogs, sheep, etc.). One dairy not far from my home, has some 30,000 cows! But that is nothing to the number of bison who once roamed the Great Plains. We are told that the herds numbered in the millions. Millions!

Imagine the quantities of methane gas they expelled. Since we now know that that gas causes global warming, the warming must have been intense in ancient America. All of the present day U.S. and Canada must have been tropical.

That, then, explains why there were so many palm trees - even alligators - in Minnesota and North Dakota!

???

Coming to New Mexico This Summer?
Here are some tips.

The cuisine called Mexican Food is sweeping the country. And, it is becoming more authentic. In 1950, I worked in Wisconsin for the summer. I once ordered a bowl of chili in a Wisconsin restaurant and was served what I considered a bowl of vegetable soup with a dash of chili powder. Today, in most of the U.S., a similar order would bring you something we call Texas chili... a dish made with beans, ground beef, and varying amounts of chili seasoning.

Actually, the name Mexican Food is, in itself, not authentic. It should accurately be called Southwest Food. While it is served in northern Mexico, other parts of that nation never heard of an enchilada, and many areas prefer seafood. In fact. one of the best fresh seafood dinners I ever ate was served in a beach side restaurant in Acapulco.

Back to New Mexico, where Southwest dishes are so popular there is a "Mexican Restaurant" on every other street corner, our state legislature actually passed a resolution declaring the Official State Question to be "Red or Green?". It is asked at every Mexican restaurant to determine if you want your meal seasoned with red chile or green chile. And, yes, in New Mexico we do use the Spanish spelling... C-H-I-L-E. Chili refers to that brown stuff from Texas - which we also serve, but more often than not, you will be served true Southwest chile, which contains neither beans or ground beef.

However, the Official Question has given way to a new version... "Red, Green or Christmas?". It seems a lot of us just can't decide if we prefer red or green chile, so we ask for both... red on one side, green on the other... now called "Christmas".

Sometimes you will hear a diner ask his server "Which is hotter?" That is because there are a lot of different chile varieties grown in the state. Green chile, which all chile peppers are before they ripen, ranges from a variety named Barker (which is too hot even for me, and I love hot chile), to Big Jim which I find to be not hot at all.

After chiles turn red they are dried, ground or crushed, and used for seasoning in numerous ways. Again, some species are much hotter than others, and if you are a new customer in a given restaurant, you won't know which kind of chiles they use.

Someone came up with what we call Scoville Heat Units (SHU) to rate the heat of a given chile variety. A common jalapeno chile measures about 10,000 SHU, while some New Mexico green chiles measure only about 1,500 SHU.

Since chiles are an important agricultural crop in New Mexico, New Mexico State University (an agricultural school) takes chile growing seriously and even has a Chile Pepper Institute, to help chile farmers grow varieties which are more drought resistant and more resistant to fungus and insects.

Abot two years ago, experts from the Institute discovered a chile variety in the northeast part of India. This variety, known as Bhut Jolokia, measures over one million SHU!

That's 100 times hotter than a jalapeno! Paul Bosland, director of the Institute, has even developed a hot sauce called "Holy Jolokia", which is to be sampled in moderation.

So, maybe a better question for your restaurant server would be, "Are you serving Bhut Jolokias?". Don't be surprised, however, if they answer as a young waitress recently answered me, "Oh, gosh... I just started first year Spanish and I don't understand that", even though the name comes from India and is not Spanish.

Lest we forget?

We already did!

We so often hear the phrase "Lest we forget" in reference to some historic event. We usually respond by vowing to remember. But we never do.

We forget everything that didn't have a personal impact. Even that is not a guarantee that we will remember.

A few years ago, on Veteran's Day, I wore my World War II veteran's pin, and asked people if they knew what it stood for. No one did. Even some guys who were old enough to be WW II vets themselves.

I emailed a local TV station's news department and asked if anyone knew what WW II vets meant when they referenced the "Ruptured Duck"? They did not reply. Probably thought it was some sort of obscene email.



Here's a pix of the pin, scanned from the back of a booklet issued to discharged servicemen and women after WW II.


I no longer have my original pin. It was the old-fashioned kind of lapel pin that actually fit into a button hole. I wore it one year on Veteran's Day and lost it. My son purchased a replacement for me - the kind that punches a small hole in the fabric and has a clip that snaps on the back.



I can't really fault people for not remembering the pin we called the ruptured duck. At the time of my own discharge from the U.S. Army, many of the vets tossed their vet's pin, and other metals and papers, in a trash can.

This past Memorial Day, I decided to try another experiment. Pretty silly, actually, no one could get this one.

I still have my father's Army dog tags from World War I. I consider that a bit remarkable inasmuch as he was discharged 91 years ago! So I wore them, hanging outside my shirt as I participated in the New Mexico Wine Grower's Association's Wine Festival at the Southern New Mexico State Fairgrounds. Here they are, the round ones, alongside my own rectangular dog tags from WW II.

Those two aluminum disks hanging on a chain aroused no one's curiosity. Finally I pointed them out to some friends, and they seemed duly impressed at the antiquity of the things.

At one point a guy who appeared to be in his late 50's, jokingly asked my wife if she gave a military discount on her artwork. I asked if he was active military and he replied affirmatively, explaining that he had been in the service for 38 years. Because of his unique specialty, he had been permitted to remain on active duty beyond the usual 30-year retirement.

So, I asked if he recognized my "necklace". He correctly guessed that they looked like dog tags, but could not identify them.

We both found it rather interesting that there are 14,606,500 numbers between my father's Army serial number, and my own. When I enlisted, a buddy enlisting with me was assigned a serial number one number higher than mine. Otherwise, I do not know how the Army assigns serial numbers. But it seems about right that there would have been over 14 million soldiers in the three decades that included World War II. I found it even more interesting that both my father's and my own serial number ended with the number 31.

I've tried to think of any way in which the number 31 was significant in either of our lives. No luck.

So, what does it do
to your hair???

We were going out of town for a long weekend. In our dishwasher, unwashed, were the dishes from last night's dinner and the morning's breakfast. No one wants to come home to a dishwasher full of dirty dishes, so we loaded the Glass Magic and Cascade, set the controls to Normal Wash, hit the start button and left.

Arriving home four days later we were surprised to find the dishes, not sparkling clean, but covered with a hazy coating. My wife wondered if we should call the Maytag repairman. I wondered if something had interrupted the machine's wash cycle, allowing the dishes to dry in soapy water.

We re-loaded the detergent and re-started the machine. At the end of cycle number two, there was no change. Glassware was still cloudy. Plates and dishes felt slippery. I wiped one glass with a paper towel and the stuff came off, but not entirely, it still left an oily coating.Then I saw a suspect. Before leaving town, I had emptied a pump bottle of Dove Hair Conditioner in the shower. After shaking out all the material possible, my wife looked at the well-made pump bottle and allowed that there may be some future life for this item. She rinsed it and stuck it in the dishwasher along with the dirty dishes. It was the residual hair conditioner that had left a coating on the dishes.

We now discarded the hair conditioner bottle, but it took two more cycles to get things clean.So, what does this stuff do to your hair? I've often wondered just what they meant by "conditioning" your hair. Now I know - it coats it with an oily substance! And I thought I was through with an oily head when I gave up on Vaseline Hair Tonic! It makes sense. We've all seen a small child with freshly shampoo'd but "unconditioned" hair which static charge causes to stand wildly on end. Oiling it down makes it lie down. Makes it shine. Keeps it from tangling.

Good stuff for your hair. Just keep it out of your dishwasher!

Posted by Sam Bradley - 5/27/2009 10:21:00 AM 2 comments

Time to Burnish My Reputation
- as an opinionated old man!

Here's my take on some current events:

1. Obama: All through the 2008 campaign, some of us kooks said Obama was a fool. It took him less than four months in office to prove us right. But, we didn't know he was also a liar and a cheat. New bills will be published on the net before being signed into law. Still waiting, Prez! He stands shoulder to shoulder with the U.A.W., but calls retired Indiana State Police and teachers greedy for wanting their legally secured investments secure? Etc., etc. But, of course, if anything bad is happening it is Bush's bad! ;-)

2. California's budget mess: Screw 'em. They have millions of barrels of gold (black gold) just off their shores, waiting to be hauled up and put in the bank. Hey, that would even reduce seeping and minimize the risk of getting a tar stain on some beach beauty environmentalist's foot!

3. Health care costs: A. Immediately eliminate all medical mal-practice lawsuits. Dismiss any in progress. All they do is make more John Edwards type lawyers rich. The victims get their medical bills paid - which would probably happen anyway - and a little lump of cash to buy a wide-screen TV, or perhaps a new mobile home. Most goes to lawyers. B. Immediately end free emergency room care. No more treating sniffles in emergency rooms without cash in advance. If someone has a life threatening illness or injury, but no money, treat them, but only after an enforceable, ironclad arrangement for them to pay for their care. If the person is not a citizen, get a citizen to stand for their debt or put them on an ambulance home. C. End direct payment of medical bills by insurance companies. The patient must arrange full payment, then depend on getting a reimbursement from their insurance. Many non-life threatening medical procedures would be skipped if the patient saw the costs up front, and knew he had to pay them. D. Make some care options ala carte. You want a MRI with a million dollar machine? That will cost extra.

The War On Drugs
A Different Strategy

Harry Dimwit Reid loudly proclaimed that the war in Iraq was lost. General Petraeus quietly thought that maybe we needed a new strategy. He devised one and, presto, the Iraq War was won.

To paraphrase the late Senator Lloyd Bentsen in his famous Dan Quayle put-down, I ain't no David Petraeus, but I think we need a new strategy in the war on drugs. We've been fighting this war for too long, and it seems to be getting worse. We have tried education, "D.A.R.E"; we have tried enforcement, various drug czars, the DEA, border enforcement.

My friends and I used to go to Mexico about once a month because we loved the people, the food, the fun and the shopping. Today we are afraid to go because of the violent drug cartels. We need a new strategy and I think Abraham Maslow showed us one back in 1943 with his Hierarchy of Needs. To fight the use of drugs, we need to give people something they need more than a drug high!

Maslow said our greatest need is not physiological or even safety, but things like Esteem and self-actualisation. Some years ago I addressed a group of proprietary school administrators. It was an early spring day in Kansas City and we had just been hit by a late winter storm that dumped about a foot of wet, sloppy snow on the city. The storm hit after midnight, and at the early hour of our meeting sidewalks had not yet been cleared. Several in my audience challenged Maslow's theories until I pointed out that everyone in the audience was wearing a tailored suit, expensive shoes, etc. It was apparent that "looking good" in front of their peers was more important to these attendees than keeping their feet warm and dry on this snowy morning.

A more current example is our foolish, new president. Obama so loves being adored that he reminds me of a beagle I once owned. This little dog so loved the smell of carrion that if she came upon a road kill, she had to roll in it. She would lie on her back across some dead animal and move like she was scratching her back... anything to rub the odor deeper. Obama is so fond of the adulation of crowds, here and abroad, that he seemingly rolls in it. Homeland security? Naaaa. Not so important. That is so "Bush"!

You think there is no treat that would wean people off drugs? It is working with tobacco - or nicotine, if you prefer. I started smoking regularly when I was 15. I took a job with a company that serviced cigarette vending machines, for pity's sake. If a machine malfunctioned and damaged a package of cigarettes, the pack was thrown away... free smokes for the help! And that was when smoking was sooo cool. I recall the great Edward R. Murrow often photographed with a cigarette. FDR frequently had his long cigarette holder clenched in his teeth. Every movie showed glamorous people smoking. Catchy TV ads promoted cigs with phrases like "a silly milimeter longer" for 101s, or even said that doctors preferred a certain brand. Romantic songs referenced smoking. Johnny Carson smoked on the Tonight show.

We stopped all of that, but smoking only increased. We tried scaring people. I remember being accosted in a mall parking lot and having a big photo of a blackened lung, disected from some cadaver, crammed in my face. It had no effect. We taxed, and are still taxing! In the South Pacific we soldiers paid 75¢ for a carton of cigarettes. Ten packs. Six bits. Today, just the tax on one pack is more than that. We enforced prohibition of sales to minors. That only made smoking a prize you won on your 18th birthday.

Then, we began to make smoking "not cool". I'm not sure how it happened... but all of a sudden, smoking was just not the sort of thing really cool people did. Smoking has seriously declined.

Supposing we all did this... if a friend mentions smoking a little pot, or snorting cocaine, we recoil in disgust. A clear signal that, while we may not worry about the legality of drugs, we just think drug use is something we find repellent.

Gee! All those poor, misguided PETA souls would have something better to do than throw paint on some ladies fur coat. The global warmng goons could go for a cause that really did some good, instead of fighting for causes that punish innocent people.

I smoked for about thirty years and found it very satisfying. Then, I found something more satisfying and I quit, cold turkey. Nothing could make me quit - until I wanted to quit. Why not give old Abraham Maslow's idea a try?

Make NOT using drugs really cool!

When I hear Green, I See Red

Lately we’re hearing a lot more about organic farming. I used to think they just didn’t understand. Now it just makes me mad.

I grew up in the 1930s, when all farming was organic. The modern pesticides, herbicides and animal medications which saved the world from starvation, had not yet been invented, or simply were not available to poor dirt farmers.

I spent many, many fall afternoons walking alongside a horse-drawn wagon, picking corn. Little, scrubby nubbin ears of corn, four to six inches long, every one a host to at least one worm. We just didn’t have the pesticides to kill whatever laid the eggs that hatched the worms. The horses tails were a solid block of tangled hair and cockleburs, from the plants that grew between the rows of corn, because we had no herbicide to control them.

Then, there were the animal diseases. Once our entire winter-supply-of-pork-to-be was wiped out by a sudden infection of cholera.

Travel to Iowa today and see endless vistas of cornfields, beautifully clean of weeds. Visit in late fall and see thousands of perfectly shaped, 12 to 14 inch ears of corn, enough to feed half the world, fatten half the world’s livestock and still have some left to make fuel for cars and trucks.
Herds of beautifully healthy farm animals are everywhere, protected by modern vaccines and nutrients.

Some people just can’t stand that. They have to look in every corner, hoping desperately to find something terribly wrong with this magnificent picture. In 1962, one Rachel Carson wrote a book called "Silent Spring". Millions bought her Chicken Little predictions and the modern environmental movement was born.

This movement brought about the banning of DDT. The use of DDT had almost eradicated malaria. There is no scientific proof that DDT causes the harm to humans or birds, attributed to this fully safe pesticide. And since its ban, malaria now kills some two million people a year.

The Greens have successfully thwarted U.S. domestic drilling for oil and gas, causing America to send billions of dollars to countries who use much of that money to develop and support anti-American activities. House speaker Nancy Pelosi says she is trying to "Save the planet". I guess her planet does not include the Middle East, where drilling is apparently okay.

Now Greens are increasing their assault on American agriculture by popularizing the mythical benefits of "organic farming".

People think Adolph Hitler was the bloodiest killer of modern times, but the tragedy of his concentration camps pales in comparison to the harm inflicted by environmentalists.

How do the Greens respond to these accusations? Dr Charles Wurster, chief scientist for the Environmental Defence Fund, may have revealed how some environmentalists really feel about human beings when he was asked if people might die as a result of the DDT ban: 'Probably...so what? People are the causes of all the problems; we have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them, and this is as good a way as any.

A Special Offer
To the decendants of our European Ancestors
(The ones who remained in the old countries)

We are really happy that you liked the new American president. He was affectionately greeted throughout his tour.

So, just to prove we still love you, here is our offer: You may keep Mr. Obama!

You may make him a King or a Chancellor, or a Prime Minister, or whatever title you choose to bestow on worthless politicians in your cute little countries.

You may fawn over him, idolize him, bow to him and applaud him to your hearts' content. You may fill your newspapers with glowing stories of your first African-European Whatever. You may give him a crown or a castle, or whatever accords with your particular ancient customs.

Meanwhile, back in the colonies, we can elect a president who will reverse the obscene government spending that threatens to rob our children and grand children of the blessings we have enjoyed since we left our ancestral homelands "over there" to come to these shores. (In the case of my family, well over three centuries ago.)

We can elect the kind of man or woman who would have destroyed that North Korean Missile on the launch pad before their Dear Leader pushed the launch button. Someone who, likewise, will remove Iran's nuclear capabilities immediately... just so we don't have to come back again and save your asses in another World War.

We can elect someone who will call a terrorist a terrorist and proceed to destroy their movement.

And then, perhaps, we will all live happily ever after - or at least a few years longer!

Fargo - Go Far - They're synonymous

Right now, the entire nation should be watching Fargo, North Dakota. Fargo is a city of about 100,000 of the most-American of all American people. It is situated on the west side of The Red River (just one of several U.S. rivers by that name), a stream that marks the North Dakota/Minnesota State Line. On the east side of the river, another 75,000 people call their town Moorhead, MN.

The area is part of the American Great Plains, where the terrain is pretty flat. It is also among the coldest spots in the "lower 48". The average low temp in January is 2º below zero, F.

It snows in Fargo, and when the average high temp is only 16º F. (as it is in January) the snow and ice just sit there on the ground, patiently waiting for spring - which comes late.

When spring does start to melt the accumulated snow and ice, there are no canyons and valleys to rapidly carry away the water. It just lazily starts to meander away from the fields - and the yards. Which, depending on the speed of the melt, always poses the danger of flooding. This year has been a doozy!

Which brings me back to the point. The good people of Fargo are not whining about their plight. They are, in the most-American American spirit, just reacting. In the few TV shots we see, the people turned out by the thousands to contain the rising Red River. You expect to see the big and the strong tossing sand bags. But in Fargo, you see the young and the old, men and women - some pretty small of frame - struggling to keep passing the heavy sand bags along.

If you've ever passed a sand bag, you are aware of the fact that sand bags defy natural law. Bags of sand of the exact same dimensions, get progressively heavier with time. The first one is not too bad. The 100th one is a killer. At 19º F., it takes considerably less than 100 to make muscles scream.

Well, it now seems that the immediate danger is receding. It appears that the Red River has crested for the moment, and the good people of Fargo are in the "watch and react" mode as they allow their aching muscles a respite.

We all hope the weather cooperates and allows some of the excess water to drain away before serious melting resumes. Whether or not that is the case, you can be assured that the people of the Fargo-Moorhead area will be quick to respond and slow to complain.

Are you listening, New Orleans?

Put my Dad in charge of the money!

My father died forty one years ago. I wish he were still alive and could be put in charge of supervising the use of the bailout money.

For many years, Dad drove a tank truck for Sinclair Refining Company, in Kansas City, Kansas. For the most part, his job was delivering gasoline to Sinclair service stations. Dad was short on formal education, long on common sense and extraordinarily high on integrity. He was very conscientious about his job and always aware of the danger inherent in a truckload of highly flammable gasoline.



When he was off-loading gasoline into the underground tanks at a service station, he always stood with his hand on the valve, ready to cut off the flow of gasoline in the event of a spill. One day, as he stood by his truck dumping gasoline, a man approached him and asked for a dime. He said he had a day's work promised him, if he could get to the job. Street car fare was 25¢ and he had 15¢. If dad would give him a dime, he could get to the job.

Dad admired people who tried to make it on their own, and quickly reached into his pocket for a dime. "But," he told the man, "this is for street car fare. Promise me you are not going to spend it on booze." The man promised, took the dime, and walked away. Dad watched him walk away but immediately became suspicious.

As the man disappeared around the building and headed for the corner street car stop, dad closed the valves to stop the flow of gasoline and went to watch the man. Not surprisingly, the man walked right past the street car stop and entered a bar in the next block.

Dad followed the man into the bar and spotted him perched on a bar stool. The 25¢ lay on the bar in front of him as the bartender proceeded to draw the beer the man had ordered. Dad walked up beside the man and said, "Give me back my dime. You promised you would not spend it on booze." He picked up his dime from the bar, put it in his pocket, turned and left.

I have always wondered what had happened next, when the bartender served the beer - for which the man could not pay.

Why can't they find a man like my father to supervise the spending of the people's money?

My Mom and Macy’s

My mother, and Macy’s Department stores were both born in New York. Mom left shortly after the end of World War One (in 1919, I think) when she married a soldier who carried her off to Kansas City. Some year’s later, when Macy’s decided to expand beyond New York, one of the first cities they chose to open a store was Kansas City.

My parents raised five children. When the youngest was seventeen or eighteen, Mom decided to take a job outside the home. I was living in a different city at that time, so I don’t remember the exact year, why she decided to go to work or why she chose Macy’s. Maybe she needed the money. Maybe Macy’s was advertising "Help Wanted" that week. Maybe it was the New York connection - mother always had a fond recollection of anything connected to New York.

In any event, she went to work as a sales clerk in the men’s furnishings department at Macy’s, Kansas City, in around 1950. She sold stuff like shaving needs, colognes, etc. Like almost everyone who had suffered through the depression, Mom considered a job a valuable asset to be treated as such. She didn’t think of her job as an obligation to show up, put in the hours and receive a pay check. To her the job meant becoming a part of the company, with an obligation to enhance the company’s interests.

Many times I heard my Dad say, "If you work for a man - if he is putting a roof over your head, a shirt on your back and food on your table - for God’s sake work for him!" Mom shared that opinion. In addition, she liked people and thought it perfectly acceptable to intrude on their personal lives if she felt she could benefit them.

If a male customer came to her counter and mentioned that a certain shaving device caused his skin to burn, she would touch his hand and say something like, "Oh, my goodness, you don’t have to suffer that! We have this lotion which will stop that burning and keep your skin soft and supple, too." As a result, her sales figures soared over those of younger sales clerks who worked different shifts in her department.

The manager of that Macy’s store was also from New York, and he frequently stopped my Mom’s counter to reminisce with her about the old days in Brooklyn or Flatbush, or "Green-pernt", as she called Greenpoint.

Eventually Macy’s decided to bring that executive back to New York. Before leaving Kansas City, he stopped by Mom’s department to say goodbye. He told her, if she ever came back to New York, to come see him at Macy’s.

Well, Mom did eventually go back to New York to visit family there. Naturally she insisted on a trip to Macy’s to see her friend. One can only imagine the surprise the secretary experienced when this 50-ish farm type lady from Missouri came into the executive offices and wanted to see "The Man"! She asked Mom the purpose of the visit. Mom said to just tell him that Dorothy Bradley from Kansas City is in town and stopped by to say hello.

Upon receiving this news, the Macy’s executive bolted from his office, gave Mom a big hug, and they sat down for a nice chat about the old days in Kansas City, before she went on her way.

Later, at home, when Mom told the story, she only told us how happy she had been to have seen her old friend. This is not an unusual story. It is the way things were before labor unions turned employer-employee dealings into an adversarial relationship.

Another pack rat caper.

Okay... let's get silly.

When most folks think "rat", they recoil in horror, disgust, or perhaps even fear. That came about because of city rats. City rats live in sewers, garbage dumps and other unsavory places.

Country rats are entirely different. I live on the Chihuahuan desert, a high desert in America's Southwest. Elevation in the valleys is around 4,300 feet. It soars a mile higher on mountain tops. Our average annual rainfall is about seven inches. You'd think no plants could live on that little water, but our desert supports a surprisingly large number of plants... and animals!

We have the usual lizards and snakes. And, larger mammals like elk and deer, plus coyotes, foxes, skunks, jack rabbits, cottontails, and little mammals like kangaroo mice, pack rats and many more.

Pack rats are clean little creatures who live on seeds, cactus fruit, roots, and other reasonable things. They love grain, grown and harvested by humans. Putting bird seed on the ground to attract quail is a dinner bell for pack rats.

If they invade your yard, you will rarely see them. What you will see is little piles of dirt where they have dug a tunnel entrance. Pack rats are tunnel experts. They dig a deep tunnel, then dig vertical shafts with pockets to provide a dry spot if it rains and water runs into the tunnel. If you see a burrow entrance on one side of the yard and another on the other side, it does not always mean two groups. It more than likely means two entrances to one extensive network of tunnels.

I have no particular animosity for pack rats, but I buy bird seed to attract quail, and I consider the rats thieves. So, I keep a live trap and when I catch a rat, I transport him to the edge of town, where he belongs, and set him free.

The other day I trapped a beautiful adult rat. I lured him into my live trap with pieces of apple. If he had been smart he would have realized there are no apple trees around and could have known something was amiss. But he was curious about the apple and got himself caught.

I asked my wife if she would like to ride along when I took him on his freedom ride and she agreed. I placed the caged rat in the back of my Jeep Cherokee and called to my wife to go. Before letting her in the Jeep, I first took a long look at the trap and told her I wanted to make certain the rat was still secure in the trap before I let her enter. Thus, I set her up to be wary.

As I started the drive, she kept glancing back at the trap to be sure it was still occupied. After a few blocks she regained confidence in the steel cage and relaxed. Even at 80 years of age, I still have a little country boy somewhere inside me. So, when she turned her eyes to the side window, I grabbed her by the shoulder.

It was beautiful. She jumped nearly out of her seat and let out a scream, but instantly knew what was up. Her scream turned to unaccustomed profanity and she began to pound me on the arm. I haven't laughed so hard in years.

We continued to the edge of town where our prisoner was pardoned and released.

This evening as she was cooking dinner I wandered through the kitchen. She said, "I will get you for the rat. Don't know when or where, but I will get you."

On a day when you have seen so much bad news in the media, when you realize you have lost half of your retirement in the so-called financial crisis, when everything looks so dark, nature cheers you up with a furry little critter called a pack rat.

I love it!

If you watched Fox News Channel today (and were not completely numbed by stiumlus package talk) you heard a lot about Mexico. I am mad as hell about that news. I live about 45 miles from Ciudad Juarez - the Mexican city named for the nation's first "Indian" (not Spanish, not French) president, Benito Pablo Juarez.

We used to visit Ciudad Juarez at least once a month. Lots of poverty in Juarez, but I loved the people there. Friendly, talented. Always welcoming. I used to buy all of my medicine in Juarez (the same stuff I could buy at my local Walgreens for two or three times the price.) And my Tequila! We went to Juarez to dine - all kinds of great food, really low prices. I have bought a lot of merchandise in Juarez. Very nice leather goods.

Ciudad Jaurez, Chihuahua, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, U.S.A., are essentially one city. Geographically, of course, but socially as well. Many families have members living on both sides. Merchants on both sides depend on shoppers from the other side.

Suddenly Juarez is off limits to us. The problem is a murdering rampage by drug cartels - 207 people have been murdered in Jaurez so far in 2009! That's just five weeks, friends.

Also on Fox News today we heard a lot of people talking about Michael Phelps. Charles Krauthammer and Juan Williams, among others, talked about the published photos of Michael using marijuana. Those two opined that he was just a kid and should be punished no more.

Let me tell you something, people. A little dry cannabis wasn't the only thing fueled by that contraption Michael was sucking. All those deaths in Juarez - Mexicans and Americans - are the direct result of America's insatiable appetite for illegal drugs.

Using drugs is not funny! It is damned serious. It is the root cause of thousands of killings - brutal, bloody killings.

Today I learned that marijuana is not the only substance being trafficked by the Mexican drug cartels. Today, officials reported confiscating vials of a drug used in breeding horses. It is being sold on U.S. streets as a date-rape drug. How would you like your daughter to accept a coke from a date, only to end up completely helpless as some creep helps himself to her body. The drug cartels can afford to peddle this stuff because their operations are supported by the sale of marijuana.

Don't ever smile at me and say "You didn't inhale." If you spent 10¢ on marijuiana, you directly participated in the deaths of people - many of them innocent of any participation in the drug trade.

And you may well be to blame for the coming invasion of U.S. soil by thousands of frightened Mexicans, running for their lives.

Tell me you smoke a little marijuana and you may well think you have walked into an 80-year-old buzz saw with a serious chip on his shoulder.

Professional Help For Cheaters!

The couple in the commercial smiles at the camera as the woman croons, "We owed the IRS $150,000 and settled for $17,000."

The matronly woman in the expensive electric propelled chair folds her laundry as she brags "I got my power chair and it didn't cost me a penny out of pocket."

The on-camera spokesman advises, "If you owe $10,000, $20,000 or more in credit card debt, we'll show you how to settle for a fraction of what you owe."

Or words to that effect. Am I the only one who gets mad at these things?

We pay a very competent CPA to compute our taxes. Often he advises of some provision in the law that can save us money. But always we pay what he says we owe... in full and on time. A couple of times we have gotten ourselve in a bind. We asked the IRS for the opportunity to pay in installments. They granted that request and we paid the total amount due on the agreed timetable... plus interest.

We use credit cards. Sure beats carrying around a pocketful of cash and is a great way to account for your purchases. When our credit card bills come in the mail, we pay them. If we feel we can get a better deal from a different bank, we may negotiate. But when we get the bills, we pay them.

We drive old cars. We use old technology. But we pay our own way. It is what we have been taught is the right thing to do.

When we see someone bragging that they got out of paying taxes or that they screwed the credit card companies, or they got Medicare to buy goodies for them, it seems that maybe we carried some of their tax burden for them, or that we, along with the banks and Medicare, are the ones getting screwed.

When we see someone making their living helping those cheats, we just get mad.

How about you?

We Piddle Around.

If you recognize that term, you must be as old as I am. That was what the average man on the street called President Roosevelts "Works Projects Administration" - the W.P.A. - throughout the 1930s.

Part of the New Deal solution to the depression, the W.P.A. was supposed to put people to work, get money into the economy AND, improve the infastructure!

Even today you can occasionally find an old shelter house at a national park, or perhaps a foot bridge somewhere, that bears the logo of the W.P.A.! So, yes, the effort did do something toward rebuilding the infrastructure. You may also argue that it made welfare recipients work for their handout. But you will be hard pressed to find anyone who will say the W.P.A. stimulated the economy.

What everyone who remembers the 1930s can tell you is that everything the W.P.A. did was done in slow motion. They piddled around.

Now Congress is again talking about stimulating the economy by pouring billions into "shovel ready" projects to improve the infrastructure. I suspect the only thing those shovels are ready for is being leaned on.

Ho hum.

The politicians also learn slowly.

Get Out of Jail FREE!

I have to vent. Thirty nine years ago, in 1970, I applied for a job. At the time I was 41 years old with an impressive record of success in public relations. I applied for a PR job. A then friend of mine, U.S. Senator Bob Dole, recommended me for the job. The folks doing the hiring, looked at my academic background and rejected me out-of-hand. Lacking the desired college degrees, I was not to be considered. Fair enough. Their decision. They decided. End of story.

Fast forward to the new century. Numerous academecians have written that today's college students have no interst in learning. They spend lecture periods text messaging or goofing around with Facebook or My Space or some other social networking service on their laptops, completely ignoring the lecturer. When they get their possibly failing grade, they meet with and plead to their professior for an exception.

Eventually they pass the course, and eventually they get their degree. They have learned little more than how to manipulate the system. Many then go into their father's business and spend a life of luxury screwing off as they did in their college classroom.

Still, as I have always advised young persons... the academic credentials are the key that will open the door. Once it opens, you have the opportunity to make it big.

Today the United States Senate gave America's youth another important reason to stay in school and stay in school and stay in school and stay in school. Keep building up those degrees.

When you have a long, long string of academic credentials, doors will pop open for you everywhere you go. You won't even have to knock... if they see you coming, the doors will pop open, like the automatic doors on retail stores. You do not have to do a good job at anything you do. The old adage "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit" really kicks in.

Now, a new chapter has been written. With the Senate confirmation of Timothy Geithner as U.S. Secretary of The Treasury, we are shown that academic credentials are a "Get Out Of Jail FREE" card. He flat-out broke the law as regards paying personal taxes. Even after his employer (the I.M.F.) specifically advised him that the taxes were due and, as I understand, gave him a check with which to make the payments. Never mind. Republicans like Utah Senator Oren Hatch say his credentials are such that he must be approved.

Geithner is described by some as part of the problem that got us into the current financial crisis. Accomplishments??? Everyone admits he has broken the law. Never mind... his qualifications are too great to consider any of this.

So, kids, no need to study or learn or work hard. Just learn to manipulate the system. Learn the "baffle them" lesson. forget about breaking the law. You will be above it.