Newscasts start with, ‘There’s breaking news!?
Newspapers? headlines scream: H1N1, Unemployment Rises, Storms, Too Many Potholes.
All are meant to startle listeners and readers enough to drive us to drink, then the headlines will read, ‘Drunkenness on the Rise!
Well, don’t let me change the mood. Here’s a Sunday headline: ‘Group says 17,291 species threatened with extinction.?
Worry!
Included in that list is the Rabb’s fringe-limbed tree frog.
Scientists in Britain have decoded a pig’s DNA which may lead to finding a flu vaccine for pigs.
Actually, I don’t know if that’s good news or bad.
Ah, but I know this is bad and very concerning. The buttonholes on my dress shirts are cut vertically. The buttonholes on my pajamas are cut horizontally. Why, and who decides?
Worry, worry!
And about those loopholes. Whether it’s state or federal government, our esteemed leaders say they can pay for whatever increased expenditures they’re recommending by closing loopholes. I remember hearing those promises 50 years ago. I suppose some have been closed during those five decades, but new ones have probably been enacted.
Red letter warning: Michigan has 15 percent unemployment. Smaller, black letter subhead: Michigan has 85 percent employed. Nationally, 90 percent of the work-force is employed. Not bad.
Quit worrying!
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Why have we become a tie-less society?
Last week. The Obama-picked president of Chysler Corporation had his first press conference. His hair was disheveled and uncut and his checkered shirt was unbuttoned at the neck.
Inside the same Sunday paper was a posed picture of this man with trimmed, neat hair, white shirt and necktie.
Why would Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne want to present two faces?
The longtime advertising spokesman for State Farm now appears sans tie. Are ties thought to be too formal, too serious, not me-like? Men in the tv newsrooms wear ties.
Maybe we’ve become a totally casual society, one that doesn’t have to dress for confidence. John McCain and President Obama seem to wear ties only when wanting to create a vote-getting atmosphere.
Both look very foreign in unbuttoned shirts.
But, then, I have over 200 neckties, so I might be prejudiced.
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Here are a couple internet transmissions that keep me off that communication device.
Verbatim from court reporters:
Attorney: How was your first marriage attermined?
Witness: By death.
Attorney: And by whose death was it terminated?
Witness: Guess.
Next:
Attorney: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?
Witness: Did you pass the bar exam?
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? If you tried to count off a trillion seconds, it would take you 31.7 years.
? In the Middle Ages chicken soup was considered an aphrodisiac. Works for me.
? Fetuses can hiccup.
? If I walked upside down and backward, I’d look like Dolly Parton.