Jodi's Not Amused

Somebody needs to get over herself...BIG TIME...

Next Week, We Outlaw Cancer!

The following letter appeared in my local rag today:

The banner headline across the top of page 4A of our Bismarck Tribune on Tuesday declared, “Some Chicago laws starting to seem intrusive.”The AP byline story noted the crackdown by the Chicago City Council on “things they deem unhealthy ...”Apparently, the city council in the past year has passed laws banning “smoking in nearly all public places, use of cell phones while driving” and was now proposing to “restrict fast-food chains from cooking with artery clogging transfat oils.”
Now what’s so intrusive about that?
Even big business, tired of rapidly rising health costs from unhealthy food and sugary drinks, wants change.Only the fast-food giants who use transfat oils would find such laws intrusive.Not most people. It is why we elect our leaders, our government: to pass laws for the common good. We know about secondhand smoke. Driving while talking on the cell phone is like driving drunk. And transfats clog arteries. That’s proved.Maybe our city commission will go the Chicago City Council one better and ban transfat oils at all restaurants, at cafeterias in schools, colleges and workplaces and in food served to patients in nursing homes and hospitals.Healthy kids, healthy moms, healthy dads, a healthy Bismarck.
What’s wrong with that?

Know what's really scary? The brain-stem who wrote this is a physician.

Just what the hell are they teaching in Med Schools these days, anyway...

And The Big Bands Ain't Coming Back Either...

A VOA commentator (there's still a VOA?) weighing in on the demise of "shock radio."

Yeah...sure. Leave it to a government mouthpiece to be as clueless as this. Next he'll be telling us how rock 'n' roll will die out any day now...

Eddie We Hardly Knew Ye

Remember Eddie LeBec, Carla's ill-fated, hockey player beau on Cheers? Ken Levine (who wrote for the show) has a great story of how Eddie (or more accurately, actor Jay Thomas) got himself written off the show...

Baby Let's Play House

It took a court order to drag the Tarheel State, kicking and screaming, into the twentieth century. (I realize we’re now into the twenty-first, but hey – one step at a time.)

And before you start making jokes about those backward folk down in the Old Confederacy, consider: six other states have a similar law on the books - including the state where I currently live...

The Real-Life Mike Hammer, R.I.P.

The lady in the picture was actually Spillane's wife. No, really. You was da man, Mick...

Scrooged?

Here’s the site of that blogger who claims to have traded up from a paper clip to a house. I must admit I’m skeptical.

The whole affair sounds like a old Scrooge McDuck story I vaguely remember reading as a kid - something about Donald tricking Unca Scrooge into thinking fish was the new legal tender. Step by step, in a manner simliar to the one described above, Scrooge amasses a fortune - in fish.

Any Carl Barks fans out there who can refresh my memory?

UPDATE: Thanks, Kevin...

Where I'd Like To Be Right About Now...

Sigh...

Shine On, You Crazy Diamond

I've never really been a Pink Floyd fan; nonetheless, R.I.P. Syd Barrett...

Tie Me Kangaroo Down

A Kangaroo is on the lam in Bismarck, North Dakota.

(WARNING: Not to be confused with a King-Sized Mouse...)

(The Fugitive - Artist's rendering)

UPDATE: He's home - safe and sound...

Solid Gold, To Make Ya Feel Old

I have never been a fan of the AARP.

I don't much care for their political agenda (which, as I see it, boils down to: "We're old, and the world owes us a living...").

Last year, as I approached my fiftieth birthday, I started getting junk mail from guess who. For once in my life, I got motivated to take decisive action: I wrote the AARP, informing them I was not interested in joining their fine organization and asking them to take me off their mailing list forever and ever, amen.

In response I got a pleasantly-worded note apologizing for the inconvenience and promising that the junk mail would stop.

It hasn't.

What is it with interest groups anyway? It's not that they won't take "no" for an answer - they do take no for an answer, then just go about their merry way as if you never said it.

We have a "do not call" registry - how about a registry to block junk mail from interest groups?

Sadly, that'll never happen - groups like the AARP have too many Congresspeople in their back pockets.

And after all, the world owes them a living - just ask them...

Happy 7/4

Let freedom ring...