R. Loeffelbein's LINKS TO LAUGHS: Best Golf Joke Ever

      I shared the best golf joke ever with readers of my 1998 book Offbeat Golf - still available incidentally from Santa Monica (California) Press - but, even if you did read it there, don't stop me, because I want to enjoy it again anyhow. Because it is THE classic "hustle"!
     It involves two very well-known gentlemen, Stevie Wonder and Tiger Woods. I can't speak for the veracity of the story, but that is of little consequence.
     Stevie and Tiger meet in a restaurant where they are both having dinner. Tiger politely asks Stevie, "How's the singing career going?"
     Stevie replies, "Not too bad. How's your golf?"
     Tiger also replies, "Not too bad. I've had some problems with my swing, but I think I've got that going right now."
     Keeping the conversation going, Stevie says, "I always find that when my golf swing goes wrong I need to stop playing for a while and not think about it. Then, the next time I play, it seems to be all right."
     Surprised, Tiger asks, "You play golf?"
     Stevie answers, "Oh, sure. I've been playing for years."
     Tiger asks, "But you're blind. How can you  play golf if you can't see?"
     Stevie says, "I have my caddy stand in the middle of the fairway and call to me. I listen for the sound of his voice and play the ball toward him. Then, when I get to where the ball has landed, the caddy moves further down the fairway or to the green and again I play the ball toward the voice."
     "But how do you putt?" Tiger wants to know.
     'Well," explains Stevie, "I have my caddy lean down in front of the hole and call to me, with his head on the ground, and I just play the ball toward his voice."
     Woods, curious how this works, asks, "What's your handicap?"
     "Well, I'm a scratch golfer," Stevie says.
     Tiger, more amazed than ever, says, "We've got to play a round sometime."
     Stevie replies, "Well, people don't take me seriously, so I only play for money, never for less than $1,000 a hole."
     Tiger grins as if that is a joke, and replies, "I'm for that. When would you like to ;play?"
     "Pick a night!" says Stevie.









   

From the Mouths of Babes

     I did a stint as a teacher and it always amazed me what came out of the mouths of these babes.
     Take the youngster who had spent the week before Christmas studying Christmas cards.  "Don't men ever go to Heaven?" she asked.
     "Of course," I assured her. "Why?"
     "Because I never see any angels with whiskers on these cards."
     Thinking fast, my female teaching assistant replied, "That's because men who do go to heaven get there by a close shave."
     Logic would not have been half as good an answer.
     Logic, in adult-posted signs, is often lost on kids too. Like my sister's youngster who, in seeing a sign in a store proclaiming, "Watch Batteries Installed -$5", asked, "Who would pay to watch batteries installed?"
     "Charistmas' is often kicked off in our community by Santa arriving at the town square riding a fire engine. But what engaged three youngsters standing near me was the Dalmation dog sitting on the front seat of the engine. They began discussing what his duties might be.
     "They use him to keep the crowds back," guessed one.
     "No, he's just for good luck, voiced another.
     "No, they use the dogs," the third child said firmly, "to find the fire hydrants."
     The fire truck also visits schools to hype fire safety programs and one teacher themed a class lesson on duties of firemen. One student thought the main job was rescuing people. The teacher asked him to put that job into a proper sentence.
     "The fireman came back down the ladder pregnant," was his effort.
     Somewhat nonplussed, the teacher asked if he knew what 'pregnant' meant.
     "Sure," returned the boy, it means 'carrying a child'."
     Puberty is another word that puzzles kids. When my sister's girl asked her what it meant, sis told her to look it up and then they would talk about it. Upon her return she announced, "Puberty si the earliest age at which a girl is able to bear children".
     So what do you think about that?" asked sis.
     "I'm not sure," her daughter replied. "I've always been able to bear children. It's adults I can't bear!"
     The problem of which comes first, Christmas or New Year's Day, seems to perplex some kids. One I heard resolved it this way: "Christmas just barely sneaks in the nick of time before every new year. We try to hurry it up along about Halloween."
     Another input reported, "I observed New Year's Day last year and what I observed was that New Year's Day comes quite late at night."
     The group's final comment was, "A good reason for New Year's Eve is to tell the year to get ready to end. When a year or anything else gets to a good ending place, it should know enough to stop there and end."
     The group also discussed New Year's resolutions. The one I remember best was stated this way: I resolved to always be honest because it is more important to be honest than rich and famous and happy." As he thought about that, he added, "Or at least any one of these...by itself...in most cases."
   
   

THE WHATCHAMA COLUMN: The Problem of Naming Children

     There is always a problem in naming a child. Parents may want a strong sounding name. Or an aesthetically pretty one their child will like through life. Or a unique one. A pair of amateaur actors I know wanted one that would not likely be typecast if he also should become, as hoped, a thespian. They could consider the name George Spelvin, which is rather famous in theater parlance, though not apt to be typecasted. In the list of actors on a stage play program sometimes this name appears, even though there is no character by that name. That's because it is the name credited to an actor who plays a second role.
     Naming a child includes anticipating also how other children will cruelly twist it to make fun of it. I've always liked my name, Robert, though hardly anyone other than mom has ever called me anything but its nickname, Bob. But then there is some benefit in that too since Bob may be spelled the same forward, backward or upside down. But my last name, Loeffelbein, which is Austrian-German, was a problem. It means "spoon-leg" I've been told, and goes back to the time - pre eating utensils - my antecedents made spoons from the bone legs of animals. It's spelling and pronunciation is difficult, so children shortened it to "Lift-a-bean" and "Laff-a-vine". When I became a teacher I had to get rid of that problem, so I would go to the blackboard (before whiteboards were invented) and print "Loeffel rhymes with awful; bein with fine; Loeffel-bein, awful fine!" That worked pretty well, at least within my hearing..
     Actually Robert is a Celtic name meaning "Bright in fame", even though my antecedents were not Celts, but Austrian (via the Black Sea area of Russia), Welsh (via a young sailor who jumped ship on the Eastern seaboard and lived with the Indians), German (via immigration) and Old English (or maybe French, since Staples, my mother's maiden name, was a very often traded name among the gentry early on in both those countries).
     When I was a youngster Robert was a very popular name in America. You could yell, "Hey, Bob" (or even "Hey, Roberta" or "Hey, Bobbi") in any crowd and several people would answer. But that's in the past. At age 91 I have outlived all the Roberts and Robertas I knew through school and new ones, according to new-born lists I have seen, have been few and far between.
     The Social Security Administration's website provides a list of the top 1,000 baby names for each year, dating back to 1880, for both states and country. Tope names that year were John and Mary.
     For an example of the change, here is the list of the most popular names for boys and girls born in the U.S. in 2013. John was then 28th and Mary was 123rd.
     For the boys, Jacob was listed for the 14th straight year at number one. It is easy to pronounce, easy to spell, is solid and manly, and is a Biblical name, always in style. Next came Mason, Ethan, Noah, William and Lian (who cracked the top ten for the first time). Following those were Jayden, Michael, Alexander and Aiden. Daniel slipped from the top ten for the first time since 1998, to 11th. Some of the "strong" names making the longer list were King, Messiah and Major.
     Americans have long given their children aggrandizing names, like Noble and General. Both were on the list for much of the 20th century, though not cracking the top 100.
     For the girls, Sophia was number one for the second year in a row, followed by Emma, Isabella, Olivia, Ava, Emily, Abigail, Mia, Madison and Elizabeth.
     Some parents refuse to give "expectation" or grandiose or "purity" names for fear of putting undue pressure on their children. Chastity was in the top 1,000 for more than two decades before dropping off the list in 1994. Justice was listed in 1880, fell off the list for more than 100 years, then reappeared in 1992 and climbed to number 518 in 2012.
   The 2014 favorite baby names were Emma, Olivia, Sophia, Isabella and Ava for girls. Boys names were Noah, Liam, Mason, Jacob and William. Emma has been ranked among the top three baby names since 2003, reaching number one in 2008 and was second in 2013. In 2013 20,799 newborn girls were named Emma. Charlotte, at number ten, cracked the top ten  list for the first time, probably because both Chelsea Clinton and Britain's Prince William and wife Kate named their new babies Charlotte.
     Showing how a celebrity name can effect the list, a popular Mexican singer and a character on a Mexican telenovella shown in the USA, both named Aranza, caused a jump over 3,625 names to number 607.
     Several countries have passed legislation to stop such a naming hodge-podge. Iceland has a naming committee that consults the National Register of Persons to determine if a name is acceptable. Parents who want to use a name off-list, they must apply for approval and pay a fee, and the name must contain only letters in the Icelandic alphabet.
     In Germany parents are banned by law from using last names or the names of objects and products as first names. A child's first name must clearly indicate his or her gender and must be approved by the office of vital statistics in the borning region.
     In New Zealand the Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act of 1995 prohibits parents fromchosing a name that "might cause offense to a reasonable person; is unreasonably long or is, includes, or resembles an official title or rank". "Adolf Hitler" and "Yeah Detroit", for instances, have been rejected.
     If Danish parents prefer a name not on their list of 7,000 pre-approved baby names, they must get permission from local church and government officials. Up to 20% of 1,100 names reviewed annually, including creative spellings of common first or last names are rejected.
     Such regulation would never pass in the U.S. where a Phoenix girl was given the middle name of Joan of Arc, and a female singer named Pink spells her name with an exclamation point replacing the i. And I shudder to think what some adults, who have taken unique names for themselves, may name their future offspring. David Montenegro, running for office in Rochester, NH, for example, changed his name to "human" (yes, with small h). He lost his race 181-30 to non-believers. And elsewhere Jeffrey Drew Wilschke changed his name to the more catchy and memorable Beezow Doo-Doo Zippity-Bop-Bop (and became the punch line for late night talk show hosts across the country).

Sources: The Gamily Digest, "The One-in--Million Baby Name Book" by Jennifer Moss, along with her Babynames.com Website, and "The Baby Name Wizard" by Laura Watterberg and her Babynamewizard.com Website.)

Things You Probably Didn't Know About Our Presidents

     All the U.S. presidents have been written about ad infinitum, yet there are things we still don't usually know about them individually. These are usually little things that kept them recognizably human while they toiled in a job that transcends "difficult". Here are some things you probably didn't know about some of them.

Each of the first ten U.S. presidents - from Washington to Tyler - lived to be at least 70 years old, this in a time when the average male life expectancy was under 40 years of age!

Military service used to be almost a requirement for winning public office. Twenty-seven of  44 presidents served in the military.

Vice Presidents have become President 14 times - five via election, four via assassinations, four via natural deaths, one via resignation.

Grover Cleveland, who won the 1884 election when hardly anyone thought he had a chance, once hanged a man, personally. That was when he was sheriff of Erie County in New York state, and was called upon to execute a murderer.

Biggest losers in presidential campaigns have been Norman Thomas and Eugene V. Debs. Both were nominated by the American Socialist Party but lost: Debs in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920; Thomas in 1928, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944 and 1948.

In the 1912 campaign then-President William Howard Taft came in third, behind Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. This is the only time an incumbent President finished third in his re-election campaign. He did beat Debs (see above).

John Adams, later becoming President, sent a letter to Abigail Smith (who was later to become his wife) cataloguing her "Faults, Imperfections, Defects..."  Among them: She wasn't a good card player. She was prudish. She blushed too often.

President Andrew Jackson, who had some real enemies, was the first president in an assassination attempt. In 1835 Richard Lawrence fired a couple shots at him, but missed. Lawrence was declared insane. (Some said he was insane to shoot and some said he was insane to miss.)

There are 25 counties and 24 cities named for Abraham Lincoln, as well as nearly 600 schools and a room in the White House. He has also been depicted on U.S. coinage, currency and postage stamps.

Lincoln used a top hat to carry letters, bills and notes in for quick reference.

The first President to visit all 50 states while in office was Richard Nixon.

Calvin Coolidge stayed fit by riding a mechanical horse.

George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson all were avid player of marbles.

Thomas Jefferson was an inventor. The most unusual of his inventions? An indoor weather vane.

James Garfield could write Greek with one hand while writing Latin with the other hand.

Andrew Johnson kept pet white mice.

William Taft had an oversize bathtub built in the White House. Other Presidents have installed a bowling lane, a golf putting range, a swimming pool and a gym.  

Gerald Ford had pro football offers from the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions.

Ronald Reagn is reported to have saved 77 swimmers' lives as a lifeguard.

Riddles Keep the Brain Active

     Keeping one's brain active is one way to help keep us from getting old and senile. Thinking riddles through to conclusions can, thus, be useful. 

     Reader's Digest Magazine, over a period of time, has printed the following ones in a question-and answer format. They haven't listed originator names, so I can't give individual credits where due. 

     As you read the questions don't overthink. Keep common logic in mind;

Question 1: I am the beginning of the end of time and space. I am essential to creation, and I surround every place. Who am I?

Q2: Yellow I look, and massive I weigh; 

       In the morning I come to brighten mom's day. What am I?

Q3: A word I know contains six letters. Subtract the last letter and only twelve remain. What is the word?

Q4: What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps?

Q5: A red house is made of red bricks and has a red wooden door and a red roof. A yellow house is made of yellow bricks and has a yellow wooden door and a yellow roof. What is a green house made of?

Q6: I multiply, but never breed; live on air, but never breathe; devour much, but never eat. I'm often measured by my heat. What am I?

ANSWERS:

1. The letter "e".

2. A school bus.

3. Dozens.

4. A river.

5. Glass.

6. Fire.

Taxes: The Golden Fleece (or The Pain In Our Assets)

A taxpayer is a person who has the government on his payroll!
Such taxation is actually a fine for doing well, a fine for reckless thriving, one might joke. It‘s a government program to handicap the hired. It‘s feeding the hand that bites you.
     Ronald Reagan, when president in March 1981, also joked about it. “Taxation is the process of plucking the feathers without killing the bird,“ he said, changing it from the original quote by Jean Baptiste Colbert, circa 1665: “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.”
Yet, in the United States on May 20, 1895, direct taxes, like the income tax, were declared unconstitutional! Remember that Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing. Unfortunately, that is the closest our country has come to being even ever since.
“The truth is that the government is penniless,” once explained Willard E. Rockwell. “Before it can spend, it must take from the people. A great many of us seem to have lost sight of the fact that the government owns absolutely nothing. If it promises to give you something, it must first take it from you.”
Though direct taxes were ruled out by the Constitution, Congress in 1862 - to help pay for costs of the Civil War - passed a law that taxed peoples’ income. It went as high as 10% on large incomes, was reduced by a higher exemption in 1867, was greatly diminished in 1969, and abandoned in 1872. In 1894, under the Wilson Tariff Law, a tax of 2% was imposed on incomes above $4,000, but was soon found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
     In 1913 the Sixteenth Amendment - officially proposed in 1909 by President Taft - made the income tax permanent. But every taxpayer had a personal exemption of $3,000, plus an additional $1,000 if married. The normal tax was 1%! The peak was 7% on incomes of a half-million dollars.
Only five states levied income taxes: Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Oklahoma. Income, total property and tax payment figures were posted for public inspection. If taxes were not paid within ten days of notice, collectors could seize and sell delinquent properties. Collectors received a commission on their total collections.  
     Times change. In 1911 there had been no tax after your income, but by 1978 there was no income after your tax, one pundit noted.

Then Came the Deluge

     As the workload grew, the IRS in 1952 was completely restructured. Instead of centralizing everything in Washington, DC, they deployed forces, dividing the country into seven independent administrative  regions. It set up ten service centers - each to take on about the same number of returns - with district offices in 58 cities, plus field offices in smaller towns.
The heart of the operation, the $20 million digital data processor attended by 357 humans, was housed in the National Computer Center in Martinsburg, WV. This monster - actually three different kinds of computers - posted tax returns in .03 seconds, 9300 per hour! At the same time it started building master files on individuals and businesses on reels of high-speed electronic tape.
The Tax Foundation, a non-profit research organization, in April 1976 set up “Tax Freedom Day” for May 1, announcing it as “the day when the average taxpayer has finally finished working just to pay taxes”. In explanation, the foundation stated that the average U.S. taxpayer (at that time) worked the first four months of the year just to support federal, state and local governments. April 15 is now considered the date when millions of Americans feel bled, white and blue.
As Congress kept tinkering with the tax laws, the tax forms got longer and murkier. In 1863 the tax form took ten lines. In 1987 Ohio Representative Delbert Latta hotly debated the version of tax reform, stating, “I hold in my hand 1,379 pages of tax simplification“.
Today the Internal Revenue Code fills 12 binders with 38,000 pages and runs to over 8,000 sections of exemptions, exceptions, exclusions and special provisions, and not even tax lawyers can always understand it. It was Albert Einstein who was once quoted, “The hardest thing in the world to understand is income taxes”. America may be the only country where it takes more brains to make out income tax returns than it does to make the income.
They still call it a tax return, though, just as though your money is going to make a round trip. How appropriate it is that tax month opens with April Fool’s Day and closes amid cries of “Mayday! Mayday!”.

Taxation Down(ers) Through History

The IRS and its “taxes rangers” now give you three choices: the long form, the short form and the ten year stretch, as one jokester puts it.
Income tax is not a new idea. Only the name is. It actually started back in the stone age. When a tribe’s males went hunting, they left some members behind to protect the women. When they returned they would give part of the bag - a form of tax - to those protectors.
Among latter day practitioners was Nabis, last king of the Spartans, who made selected subjects hug the “Queen” as a way of insuring tax payments. Not the real queen, but an automaton statue of her. Beneath the statue’s covering robe were carefully hidden sharp iron spikes. When the visitor was introduced to “the Queen” the automaton would lift its arms and hug him. He couldn’t escape until he promised to give the king the money he asked for.
Jesus Christ himself, according to Matt. 17:24-27, had to pay a “temple tax”. Taxes in the middle ages, in fact, sprang from church tithes. Payment of 10% tithe dates from ancient Hebraic tradition. An etching by Rembrandt in The Netherlands Museum of Taxation shows Christ holding the coin used for tribune money. This same museum has a hieroglyphic-inscribed Egyptian stone from 2100 B.C., that was hung from a sheep’s neck to indicate proof of tax payment on sheep.
Governments in search of money have taxed a wondrous array of unlikely items, like the ancient Greeks, who taxed doors that opened outward onto public sidewalks, and the ancient Romans, who taxed funerals (unburied bodies actually) and togas, both depending upon their elegance.
Funerals continued to be tax jewels, with some unremembered 19th century Englishman actually tracing 156 separate and distinct taxes on a funeral. In the U.S. some folks in power in Colima, CA, just in 1996 were considering boosting revenue by targeting those least likely to complain, the town’s one million dead. The plan was to charge $5 per grave every year for eternity.
Since early times, salt (salarium) was subjected to taxation. Mined from works on the banks of the Tiber, it became the first mineral to provide Rome with revenue. The word “salary” comes from Roman military personnel being paid money to purchase salt.
Businessmen who wore beards were taxed in Russia by Peter the Great. Men who refused to pay had their beards sheared by government agents. Wigs have also been taxed at times, in Europe and New York. And one early Turkish ruler taxed hosts who invited him to dinner. This was called “tooth money” because it was ostensibly to compensate him for the wear the meal put on his teeth.
The Dutch taxed windows during the 17th century, which resulted in a style or architecture free of windows, light and air. Early American householders were taxed for each door in their houses, which is one reason Victorian homes had no closets. Their loophole was moveable clothes closets called armoirs, since no tax was levied on furniture doors. The French taxed fireplaces. Intended to tax the wealthy, it resulted only in lots of cold homes.
The British claim they invented the “income” tax in 1799, resulting in the London Common Council blasting the House of Commons for “a most partial, cruel and oppressive measure”. England dropped the tax for a time, then revived it in 1842.
In 1874 it included taxing horses. One Cheshire farmer found his loophole by riding a tax-free cow.
Poland started taxing hitch-hikers. A hiker bought a license - $6 for 2500 miles - and received a batch of coupons which he gave to drivers who gave him rides. The drivers used the coupons to enter a national lottery.
Until 1830 wallpaper in rolls was not permitted in England - because it could be taxed at a higher rate if sold in small sheets. The French once taxed newspapers also, by number of pages. So printers found a loophole, publishing huge one-page folding papers.
When they also tried to tax Cognac, in the 16th century, merchants hit on the expedient of distilling the wine to reduce volume. (Consumers were expected to add water.) But consumers rapidly acquired a taste for the undiluted “brandwijn” (burned wine). Louis XIV vainly tried to suppress the practice, doubling, then tripling the taxes, but the practice of distillation spread. England renamed it Brandy.

New Uses for the Old Idea

Working tax ideas don’t fade away. As humorist Art Buchwald joked, “Tax reform is merely taking the taxes off things that have been taxed in the past and putting taxes on things that haven’t been  taxed before.”
Pennsylvania farmers, soon after passage of the first internal revenue act in 1791- forerunner of the income tax - staged the “Whiskey Rebellion” , to protest taxes on spirits. Others resented the taxing on sugar, snuff, slaves, houses and land - one collector being reported tarred and feathered when he tried to do his job.
One of the newest considerations was proposed by city officials in Kent, WA. They announced January 1, 1991 they were considering charging businesses and homes a monthly fee - $2 per employee, up to $2 per household - for use of city streets, thus declaring its city streets a public utility.
The most negative example, though, may have been a “tax on heroism”, as announced  in a United Press International release. Robert Ardema of Muskegan, MI, retired from the U.S. Air Force and included in his retirement pay was an extra $28 per month. This was awarded, along with the Soldier’s Medal for Valor, during WWII. He had rescued a pilot from a burning plane at a New Guinea air base. Ardema didn’t think that $28 should be taxed, so registered complaints to the IRS, the military and veterans’ groups. But he lost.
Showing how precise the IRS can be was noted in a Life Magazine clip. Minnesota state auditor Mark Dayton, 45-year old heir to a department store fortune, voluntarily slashed his $65,000/year salary to $1, in order to save jobs in his department. When he opened his annual pay report he discovered he actually received only 81 cents. The state had taken 10 cents in taxes and nine cents in other deductions.
The IRS broke its rule not to make a refund under $1 again when a Chicago taxpayer listed his occupation as “slave”. The revenue director explained, “He might need the nine cents due him.”
The Department of Internal Revenue once even taxed women according to the size of their waistlines. It happened when a young women’s junior college held a dance, with admissions varying depending on the size of a coed’s waist measurement. At the time there was a 20% tax on such affairs, so a Revenue agent had to determine the average waistline to figure the average admission price on which he could collect the tax. He ultimately set 24 inches as a fair average.
Famed satirist Jonathan Swift once proposed a somewhat similar tax to be levied on female beauty. When a listener objected, asking, “How could we ever make women pay enough to make such a tax levy worthwhile?” Swift laughed, “Let every woman be permitted to assess her own charms - then she’ll be generous enough.”
Such a tax, in a round-about way, actually exists. Dancer-film actress Betta St. John once complained movie stars, models and other performers should be granted a tax write-off on the theory that they, like machinery, depreciate in value with time. Because they have a limited period of years in which to earn money, they shouldn’t be taxed the same as doctors and businessmen, she contended.
A Carmel, CA, attorney followed this up by asking the Federal Court of Appeals in San Francisco to allow him and his wife to claim depreciation allowances on their bodies because they are getting older. The court took the matter “under advisement”, stating “The couple is in the wrong forum. They should go to Congress.”
Another man, a tax attorney and former five-year IRS employee who helped write the “Your Federal Income Tax“ guide, sued the government when his tax deduction for “brain deterioration” was disallowed. He estimated it cost him $15,000 to educate his brain. “The Labor Department’s statistics state that a person’s normal working life is 40 years,” he explained, “and the tax commission has also ruled that the normal retirement age is 65. So I logically interpret IRS regulations to mean that the cost of formulating my brain into a capital asset can be depreciated over a period of 40 years.” He didn’t win either.

Games People Play

The IRS deals with a lot of varied tax concerns, as might be expected. Included in the “gains that people play” was a family of Quakers in Whittier, CA, who once refused to pay 72.6% of their assessed income tax. That was the amount they figured would be used for military spending, which their religion abhorred.              And a storekeeper in Albany, NY, listed “Food for kittens that catch mice in the store” on his tax return. Agents thought a bit and allowed it as a business expense.
One Californian did his own tax returns and deducted $309 as “income tax costs”, figuring his 61.8 hours of preparation time at $5 per hour. The IRS disallowed, while admitting such cost would be allowed if done by a professional tax preparer. The man refused to accept the decision and appealed to the Tax Court, claiming this meant he was in “involuntary servitude” for the federal government, a practice clearly outlawed  by the 13th Amendment’s anti-slavery statue. But the Tax Court decided the time used to prepare a tax return was “a necessary corollary to the requirement that a return be filed”.
Even erotica has gotten write-offs, however, when placed right. Some years back the Indiana University’s Institute for Sex Research  announced in Playboy Magazine that the U.S. government would allow one to deduct the actual appraised value of your contributions to “social science”. And the price on pornography runs high. One film collection was appraised at $3,500, while a gifted 10-inch Mexican phallic icon fetched a $1,200 write-off.
An embezzler beat the system when a Federal judge in Milwaukee, WI, ruled he need not pay income tax on the money he stole.
In a 1977 interview Gary Mason of Rexford, ID, bragged he hadn’t paid income taxes since 1969, though every year he religiously filed a return. He just didn’t include any income figures. He dealt only in cash, never dealing with any bank or other institution where a paper trail might be left to follow. He cited the 4th Amendment, outlawing warrantless searches and seizures of private papers and effects in his fight. He admitted to being a member of a small group of like-minded tax protestors, centered largely in the West, some of whom have been prosecuted, some sent to jail, but some having never been discovered to be taken to court.
Leonard Barris, who tried to beat the system in an opposite way, wasn’t lucky. The IRS caught him trying to cheat the federal government out of over $350,000 in tax refunds, by filing 83 tax returns.
Agreed, it is every American’s duty to support the government, just not necessarily in the style to which it has become accustomed.  
     Occasionally protesters let their minds be known. One taxpayer sent payment in pennies inside a jar of honey. Another enclosed razor blades, another sent torn parts of an old shirt, another, when his medical deductions were questioned, mailed in his contact lenses and false teeth.
After all is said and done, where but in Washington, DC, could you get 500 Congressmen, 400 lobbyists, 300 economists and 200 computers working on a plan to simplify taxes? Especially when past reports have shown the locale with the highest rate of tax evasion to be Washington, DC!

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Need a Perfect "Squelch"?

     It takes a quick thinker to bring forth a "squelch" in time of need. The "squelch", of course, is the put-down of someone commenting unfavorably on you or whatever you happen to be doing. They are especially handy for performers dealing with audience hecklers.
     For example, I remember a stand-up comedian who told me once that he had a surefire way of squelching a drunk during his nightclub act. He would signal for an off-stage phone to ring, then pretend to answer it, then turn to the heckler and say, "Pardon me,sir, it's your doctor. He says your spare mouth is ready!"
     Singer Bobby Vincent once scored by telling a loud talker during his monologue, 'You, sir, could never be a donor in a brain transplant."
     Old-time comedian Milton Berle was a master at this art. He once quieted a ringside woman with a loud voice by pointing her out and remarking, "You did the same thing to me in 1946. I never forget a dress."
     I personally experienced my first squelch as a youngster at home. I had expressed some disinterest in doing some chores I had been assigned. by my mother. So my dad added, "We think it's a very good idea, and so do I." It was an interesting way for him to announce that mom ran the household and to correct my mistake in thinking I had a say in the matter.
     Perhaps the commonest form of squelch is the mere sneering answer to a dumb question. A lady I knew got tired of people asking if she was pregnant. So she started answering with, "No, I'm just carrying it around for a friend." Her husband was just as quick-witted. He was talking about a fishing trip with a friend when a third party joined them, asking, " Did you catch some fish?" His repartee: "No, they gave themselves up."
     Those aren't zingers, of course, but they get the idea across. Just as one-time artist Georgia O'Keeffe did during what she considered a time consuming interview. The interviewer asked what she was working on at the moment. "Nothing," she snapped in resentment against interference with her work, "because I'm talking to you."
     What is interesting to me is that you can't tell a good squelcher from appearances. Take the farmer, dirtied from working all day, who dropped tiredly into a chair at a local diner. After being served, he quietly bowed his head and said grace. One of a group of young roisterers at another table loudly asked him, "Hey, pop, does everyone do that where you come from?" The old man looked sadly at him and replied, "Nope, son, the pigs don't."
     Then there was a professor of anatomy who (I've been told) told racy stories during class, which caused consternation among some of the coeds. A group of them got together and decided they would get up and leave the room en mass the next time he did that. Someone squaled on them, however.
     So, next class, halfway through his lecture, he began, "They say there is quite a shortage of prostitutes in France___", at which those girls got up and started for the door.
     "Young ladies,"called the professor, "the next plane doesn't leave until tomorrow afternoon."
     One-time cartoonist Al Capp was well paid to tour college campuses and talk to aspiring artists, where occasionally some wanna-be artist would make denigrating remarks about cartoonists not being real artists.
One such went so far as to use an obscenity in his exclamation, to which Capp replied, "All right, you've told us your name. Now what is your question?"
     Now we get to my two favorites, the first attributed to one-time British prime minister Winson Churchill. Of one contemporary his summation was, "There, but for the grace of God, goes God."
     Whitney Young, Jr., when executive of the National Urban League some years ago, arrived at New York 's Kennedy Airport and went in search of a Skycap to handle his luggage. When he found one, a black man, he asked, "Are you free?"
     "No, I'm not," was the reply, "but I'm working on it."
   



   

Things I Would Like to Hear, But Never Will !

     Much of life, unfortunately, is predictable. There are times when I would like to hear the UNpredictable, though it's not likely. Like when talking to the following people...

AUTO MECHANIC:
We're not busy. You can bring it in right now.
I've never seen anyone maintain their car as well as you have.
It was just a loose wire. No charge.
That part is much less expensive than I thought it would be.
You could get that done more cheaply at the garage down the street.

CONTRACTOR:
Sure, I'll be happy to come by on Saturday and give you an estimate. What time are you free?
Whoever worked on this before really knew what he was doing.
I find I came in a little high on my estimate.

INTERNAL REVENUE AUDITOR:
Frankly, that instruction has always confused me too.
Receipts won't be necessary. You have an honest face.
You're right. That's certainly a legitimate deduction.
After going over your returns, we've determined that you overpaid. Your refund check is enclosed.

DENTIST:
I don't blame you for feeling nervous. I feel the same way with my dentist's hand in my mouth.
I think you are flossing too much.
Relax, I won't ask you anything until I take the pick out of your mouth.
I'm afraid this is going to hurt like hell!

CAFE WAITER:
I think it is presumptuous for a waiter to volunteer his name. If you need anything, beckon and I will be here.
We do not sing "Happy Birthday" here. We feel it disturbs the other patrons.
Separate checks for your party of 12?  No problem. Let me give you coffee refills while I make them out.
Thank you, but I realize I was slow tonight, so I can't accept a tip.

STORE CLERK:
You might want to hold off on that purchase. We're marking that item down 50% tomorrow.
I'm calling to let you know we think we sold you defective merchandise. We will deliver a replacement to you or give you a full refund, whichever you prefer.
Our computerized cash register is down. If you would like to browse for just a few moments, I will prepare a receipt for you by hand.
That phone can just ring. I don't answer it when I'm dealing with on-hand customers.
I was going on break, but that isn't as important as helping you find just what you want here.

PRE-SCHOOL TEACHER:
Robert took a very good nap today.
Everyone misbehaved at down time except Robert.
Robert traded his Snickers bar for healthy carrot sticks.
I wish we had 30 Roberts.

GOLF PARTNER:
Okay, I'll give you three strokes to make up for your sore hand.
That's too bad. You had a terrible lie. Take a "Mulligan".
That's close enough. Call it a hole.
Sure, take a free drop. It's just a game.
Winning doesn't make any difference to me. I just play golf for the exercise.
Let me buy the drinks today.

(Source: Adapted from David Grimes in the Sarasota, Florida, Herald-Tribune.)

R.L. Loeffelbein's Whatchama Column: LANGUAGE "SPLASH"

     "Language splash" is probably not a term you are familiar with. That's because I just made it up to start this edition of The Whatchama Column. 

     The English language has never stopped growing. Every year the companies that produce dictionaries have to decide which new words have gained enough usage to be added to their tomes. I personally have a dictionary, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, which has 2,230 pages in it. But I still come across words in my reading that aren't in it. 

     For example, in reading a Smithsonian Magazine piece titled "Vintage Viral" I came across the word "listicle". This intrigued me, since I write another blog titled MiLISTS and each edition is basically a list following an introductory theme. They could be called "listicles", articles in list format. But, someone more clever than I - the article writer, named Britt Peterson - came up with this lovely word I can now use to describe that blog. 

     "Cyberspace" is another lovely word. It is relatively new to dictionaries, having been coined by futurist novelist William Gibson, who foresaw most of the digital revolution.

     Before cyberspace - where viral content moves at a rate that has even surprised the experts, and the word "listicle" could go viral in a matter of hours on the Internet - such a word could be printed in 500 newspapers and magazines, and reprinted 50 times from each, and still not become common usage. 

     Another much-used term now is "global warming". It was coined by Columbia University scientist Wally Broecker in a 1975 article in the journal Science. 

     One more, just getting started, is "acquihires". I noticed it in Fast Company Magazine, April 2015, used by Dropbox owner Drew Houston. It means "new employees acquired by raiding other companies personnel".

     Another term, which I recently coined, came about by being warned about a bad vacation spot. I called it "vacautioned". I doubt it will make any of the dictionaries, but I'm rather proud of it.

     Some words gain added attention by being used in a new way. Cover Girl Company, for instance, has put out nine shades of iridescent finish lipstick, calling them "lip lava". Clever connotation? 

     Word acceptance, of course, is never automatic. This is sometimes puzzling. The Eskimos, for instance, have had 52 names for snow, because it is important to them. But shouldn't there be just as many for "love"? 

     And there are other things difficult to describe that don't have designator words for them. Maybe you can help. Like describing a circular staircase without having to use your hands. Or describing a man with a goatee without having to fondle your chin. Got any clever thoughts?

     

     

     

THE WHATCHAMA COLUMN: You Don't Know Everything...

     Everybody you ever meet knows something you don't!
     It was Bill Nye who said that some years ago in Men's Journal. He said a cab driver had told him that 30 years earlier and he was reminded of it every day. I've realized it even longer than that and have, in fact, counted on it being true, since I'm a writer and a writer needs news to write. Recently these are the people I've come across who knew something I didn't.
     Kelsey Kloss, in Reader's Digest, reported Dutch researchers tracked how kissing affected the oral bacteria of 21 couples. They had one person in each couple drink a probiotic yogurt (with specific bacterial strains, so as to track the spread of germs), then share a 10-second kiss with his/her partner. The finding? The average kiss transferred as many as 90 million bacteria!
     A non-credited Associated Press writer reports that Malaysian police detained four Westerners accused of posing naked for photos on a Malaysian mountain peak, an act blamed for causing the 5.9-magnitude earthquake that killed 18 climbers on Mount Kinabalu. (A special ritual was performed to "appease the mountain's spirit".)
     Elizabeth Royte, in analyzing waste disposal in 192 coastal countries for Smithsonian Magazine, writes that so much plastic is discarded around the world that 8.8 million tons end up in the ocean every year. And, if trends continue, it's predicted the toll worldwide, by 2025, will be about 100 million pounds per day.
     A United Nations report predicts 40% of the world's water needs won't be able to be met by 2030 unless global policies on water usage change now. This would lead to economic upheavals and national conflicts.
     Chris Jordan, in Silent Spring, depicts 163,000 birds -- which, not incidentally, is the estimated number of birds that die in the United States every day from exposure to agricultural pesticides.
     The World Health Organization Tobacco Atlas, 2012, reports the number of cigarettes smoked per year for every man, woman and child on the planet to be 1,000. (The annual cost - 2014 - of smoking-related health care in the United States is $76,000,000,000.) The number of annual deaths in the United States
due to smoking and secondhand smoke is 480,327, according to the Centers for Disease Control and  Prevention, 2014.
     As you can see, it is not always fun to find out the things other people know that you don't.

The Whatchama Column: STROKES OF GENIUS

     During my reading lately I started making notes about things being done by a variety of people in varied places to make our world, and our lives inside it, better, both now and in the forseeable future. These things are so intriguing, innovative and future-important I think you will enjoy reading about them, even though I'm giving only thumb-nail versions. If you want more information on any items, Go to the sources listed or the Internet..

     1. Mick Ebeling, co-founder of the Venice, California, company named Not Impossible, is developing a device named the Brainwriter that will permit disabled persons to write with their minds. It combines new low-cost headsets, that monitor the wearer's brain's electrical activity with eye-tracing technology, and open-source software. The wearer, by thinking about a word or a single idea, can command a computer cursor to enter writing mode, then, as the eyes move, the cursor traces their path on screen. (Elizabeth Quill, May 2015 Smithsonian Magazine)

     Ebeling and his team have also 3-D printed prosthetic arms for amputees in South Sudan.

     2. Erica Mackle, co-founder of Grid Alternatives, reports that by teaching unemployed workers how to install solar panels, and by connecting them with low-income families in need of cheap electricity, the company helps solve two problems at once. The company has trained and, thus, given jobs to more than 20,000 solar installers who now install about 1,600 systems per year where most needed. (From Fast Company Magazine June 2015)

     3. Daniela Rus, director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, marks their advance in inexpensive and versatile robotics that could ultimately by created for pennies, stored in stacks like cards and deployed when needed in spaces for applications where no robot has been able to go before. Their prototype was assembled from about $20 worth of sheet paper and 3-D sheets of polystyrene from a children's Shrinky Dink art toy. Embedded wires heat and shrink, via batteries located in the middle, the material in specified places to make the robot self-fold into crab shape  and walk within minutes. 

     Researchers envision rather amazing jobs such a robot, designed to do various jobs, might accomplish, like sending a ream of the sheets into space and having them unfold into a satellite. (Science Magazine August 2014)

     4. Already many industries are using 3-D printing to create sophisticated products. Surgeons can create 3-D-printed bone grafts modeled off someone's scanned body. Dentists are fashioning the wax models for crowns and bridges perfectly fitted for a patient's mouth. Chefs are experimenting with 3-D printing foods for aesthetic effect. Plastic guns have been made (invisible to airport scanners).
     Last November astronauts aboard the International Space Station began using a 3-D printer to make a tool they needed. And now there is a skin-cell printer designed to print a range of living skin cells directly onto a patient, in the exact shape needed, for instance, to fit a wound. It can lay down tissues at the top two layers of skin, deep enough to treat and heal most burn wounds.
     Last year researchers announced the successful implantation of vaginas engineered using the patients' own cells in four teenagers suffering from a rare reproductive disorder. A Wake Forest lab is also testing lab-grown, decellurized cadaver penises and anal sphincters on animals, with the hope of starting human trials within the next few years.
     Eventually it's hoped more complicated layers of skin can be copied, including adipose tissue and deep-rooted hair follicles.  (Smithsonian Magazine March/May 2015)
     5. Mountain View, California, is testing a novel Wi-Fi network, called Veniam, that hopes to eliminate hot spot weaknesses throughout the city. Engineers tap supercharged wireless routers - reserved for transportation systems and having extra large ranges up to 1,600 feet - into the city's existing Internet infrastructure at various points. But, if a vehicle is unable to get a signal from a stationary router, it can piggyback on other vehicles in range, like city buses, police cars, taxicabs and garbage trucks, which have been fitted with Veniam's special NetRider routers as hot spots-on-the-go.
     These NetRider boxes also gather data a city can use to refine its infrastructure, like logging common traffic-congestion points or noting street damage. (Fast Company Magazine May 2015)
     6. Architect Greg Henderson, who lived through the San Francisco 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, got the idea of protecting cities and saving lives in such future catastrophes by levitating buildings. He has built a prototype featuring four "hover engines" with magnets coordinating to generate a concentrated field, which then generates an opposing field in a conductive material below, in the floor. When the two force fields repel a house, in theory, gets "lift off", floating above the trembling ground. (Kickstarter video 2014)
     7. From 2011 to 2013 the number of non-military earth-observing eye-in-the-sky satellites in orbit grew by 65%, from 92 to 152.
     They now watch over our planet's natural resources, tracking deforestation, glacier melt and urban sprawl. They watch migrations of people displaced by war in Syria and Somalia to target aid to the right places at the right times. The U.S., as the largest donor of food aid to the world, has thus been able to split $1.5 to $2.5 billion per year (among 60 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America).
     Satellites were used to monitor the pace of Ebola treatment center construction in West Africa and to confirm that crowds of people were stranded on Iraq's Mount Sinjar amid attacks by the Islamic State.They tipped Amnesty International to a sharp growth in political prisoner camps in North Korea. They have scrutinized Sudan and South Sudan, looking for evidence of atrocities and sounding alarms in the media.
     As tens of thousands of South Sudanese streamed into Ethiopia last year satellites identified for U\N. officials the most suitable places for refugee camps. They have allowed prediction of location, timing and severity of malaria outbreaks up to three months in advance, when rainfall, land greenness and ground moisture data is known. Such early warning preparation is expected to reduce malaria cases  50 to 70 percent. A NASA system, hosted on a U.S. Geological Survey website, tracks some 250 water holes and pasture conditions across Africa's Sahel, giving daily ratings to nomadic clan herders whose lives depend on such information. (Smithsonian Magazine May 2015)
     8. Neuroscientist Ken Hayworth, president of the Brain Power Preservation Foundation, is thinking about uploading his mind - his memories, skills and personality - into a computer that might be programmed to emulate the processes of his brain, making him, in a way, immortal (so long as someone kept the power on).His most optimistic scenario envisions - in 50 years or so, with billions of dollars in help - a future of "substrata independent minds merging human and machine consciousness, transcending biological limits of time, space and memory".
     As a first step, he hopes to achieve the ability to preserve an entire human brain at death - through chemicals, cryonics, or both - to keep its structure intact with enough detail that it can, at some future time,  be scanned into a database and emulated on a computer. (Smithsonian Magazine May 2015)

     

Tech Squibs You Probably Don't Know About

     Since I read a lot in a lot of varied publications I come across a lot of interesting - to me, at least - squibs in the tech news that I think are interesting or intriguing enough to share.
     For instance, did you know that Robert Morris, a commuter school based in downtown Chicago with fewer than 2,500 undergrads, is the first college in the U.S. to make video gaming a varsity sport? Top players can receive scholarships worth up to $19,000 per year.
     Their team, the Eagles, has the same mascot as the other varsity sports. They practice up to five hours per day in a classroom converted into a gaming center, which they sold the naming rights to (iBuypower E-Sports Arena) for more than five figures.
     Being developed in the MIT Space Lab - though created by engineers at Microsoft - is a transparent screen called SpaceTop. It works like a regular monitor, but put your hands behind it and suddenly your are able to manipulate 3-D models as though they were physical objects. To exit cyberspace and return to Windows just pull your hands back to the keyboard.
     The same researchers at the Tangible Media Group lab are also conducting experiments (title: InForm) that could make it possible for us to actually handle, shape, and manipulate physical objects even when they are far away.
     Less mind-shattering, but still interesting, is an app called Monument Valley, by ustwo. It is both an interactive work of art and a mobile game, wherein the player guides a faceless princess through elegantly crafted surrealistic structures.
     Two other apps, more useful types, include Soundown and Breathe2Relax. Soundown, with an idea originating with records, uses natural sounds, like a crackling campfire and coffee shop background noises, to free the mind for relaxation. Breathe2Relax focuses on deep breathing for quick calming in stressful eventualities, complete with helpful learning notes. Both available on IOS and Android.
     Several products also have struck my fancy. KissCam, by taliaYstudio, is a camera you activate by kissing it. The Vivitar Full HD Action camera - $100 at Amazon.com - mounts to a bike or an ATV to film a rider's "extreme excursions".
     The 3-D Printing Pen ($99 at hammacher.com) is a hot-glue-like handheld printer that extrudes warm plastic, turning doodles into sculptures when it hardens.
      Just as imaginative is the "origami robot" Crab-walker created by Harvard and MIT researchers. It's made of paper, bits of wiring and 3-D sheets of polystyrene from the children;'s art toy Shrinky Dinks, with batteries situated in the middle. Embedded wires heat and shrink the material in specific places, allowing the robot to bend, fold and unfurl, self-assembling into a robot walker.
     Envision a ream of these prepared sheets, for instance, being sent into space and unfolding into a satellite. They could also revolutionize manufacturing, allowing people to design and print their own robot to do whatever they want.

(Information taken from Discovery, Parade and Fast Company Magazines.)t Know About

Punny You Should Say That!

     I'm not a fancier of puns especially, but these (from Net Mail Verizon) struck my funny bone. Some of them are bound to make you smile.

How do you catch a Unique Rabbit? (Answer: Unique up on it.)

How do you catch a tame rabbit? (Tame way, unique up on it.)

How do you get holy water? (You boil the hell out of it.)

What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work? (A stick.)

Why don't blind people like to sky dive? (Because it scares the dog.)

What do you call cheese that isn't yours? (Nacho cheese.)

How do crazy people get through a forest? (They take the psychopath.)

What are Santa's helpers called? (Subordinate clauses.)

What comes from a pampered cow? (Spoiled milk.)

Where would you find a dog with no legs? (Right where you left him.)

Why do gorillas have big nostrils? (Because they also have big fingers.)

What lies at the bottom  of the sea and twitches? (Nervous wrecks.)

What would you get by crossing a snowman with a vampire? (Frostbite.)

What is the biggest difference between roast beef and pea soup/ (Anybody can roast beef.)

Playing With Your Food

     By the late 1990's McDonalds claimed to be opening a new store somewhere  every three hours. Today nearly two million people work at 36,000 McDonalds fast food restaurants in 119 countries. Transitioning to foreign countries has meant experimenting with their 75-year old tried-and-true operation. In Sweden this has even meant a ski-through.
     Menus have also been played with, and have become more nutritious because of demand. And local foods have been incorporated, like the Hula Burger (with grilled pineapple) in Hawaii, Filet-O-Fish launched in 1982 to capture Lenten business, and the McLean Deluxe, made with seaweed to save calories.
     They haven't been alone playing with their food choices, of course. KFC, for instance, has debuted a burrito stuffed with fried chicken, cheese, bacon and bourbon barbecue sauce in New Zealand.
     The Filipino enclave in Las Vegas, Nevada, is making changes there. Filipino spaghetti, unlike Italian style, is sweet. In place of tomato sauce they use banana ketchup, which was developed during World War II when tomatoes were in short supply. And they plunk sliced hot dogs into it, instead of meatballs. They also use rice noodles instead of the wheat noodles the Chinese prefer.
     Some other foods they just import as is, like siopao, which is the Chinese steamed buns with meat inside; Spanish flan they call leche flan; and adobo, which is a derivative of Chinese soy sauce chicken. Frozen foods include banana leaves, squash flour, horseradish fruit, grated casava, and macapuno and cheese ice creams. And halo-halo, which is rather unforgettable. This is sort of an ice cream sundae, but the ice cream is purple (made from yams), evaporated milk replaces whipped cream, boiled beans - garbanzo, white and red - replace nuts, and coconut, palm fruit, pounded rice flakes, jack fruit and shaved ice are added. Halo-halo quite logically means "hodge podge".
     Companies that produce the foods and drinks used in restaurants, and in our homes,  also have experimentation periods where tasting panels play with flavors. In attempting to find their product's "bliss point", where the perfect amount of sugar creates the maximum  amount of appeal, the Cadbury Schweppes company tasters prepared 61 distinct formulas and subjected them to 3,904 tastings before creating their popular cherry-vanilla Dr. Pepper.
     They aren't alone in their failures. In a given year up to 89% of new items, like Classic Coke, fail.
     To show how far afield this playing with food goes, some of the foods we now eat have intriguing origins. For example, the bacteria responsible for sourdough bread originally came from rodent feces. Any sourdough we eat has that history, yet it is all perfectly safe, and delicious.
     The first graham crackers, as another example, were invented by a Presbyterian minister "to reduce sexual desire". Sylvester Graham created a bland, white, wheat-like biscuit and it wasn't until after his death that it was turned into the sweet treat we know today.
     Indiana dairy farmer Mike McCloskey dissected milk, adjusted its components and came up with a milk that has almost 50% more protein and calcium, half the sugar, and no lactose.
     Not everything turns out so well with this sort of individual tinkering. J.M. Hirsch, a writer for Associated Press, in a report on a new ketchup, states that Traina Foods, producer of all manner of dried fruits and vegetables, "has combined the world's two most perfect condiments" to make sweet and spicy Sriracha Sun Dried Tomato Ketchup. Then he spoils it by relating how he uses it - in what he calls "ketchup-pickle soup". Here is his recipe: Fill a cereal bowl with bread-and-butter pickle chips, then overfill  this with Sriracha Ketchup. He eats this with a spoon!

(Sourdough and graham cracker items courtesy of Rob Dunn in "The Man Who Touched His Own Heart" and Libby O'Connell in "The American Plate: A Culinary History in Two Bites" respectively.)
   




   
   

   
   

YOUNGSTERISMS

     Children, with their limited language skills, still manage to bridge that gap - when they want to describe or explain something new or unusual to them - by wonderfully simplifying both thought and wordage.
     A St. Louis elementary school teacher named David Harvey coined a name for this - youngsterisms. He once illustrated these by writing about some of the answers he got on a quiz about Christmas.
     Observations concerning Christmas trees brought these comments:
     "A star is for living in Heaven when it is not for wearing in a Christmas tree's hair."
     "Needles are found in both pin cushions and Christmas trees."
     "Pine trees are not the only Christmas tree. Christmas grows on many kinds of trees."
And "Pine trees give us Christmas and turpentine."
     "I was thinking all pine trees were small enough to take into the house and put Christmas decorations on. When I learned different, all the thoughts I was going to say went in a swallow down my throat."
     Christmas carols sometime get a bit mangled, he found, recited as "Round John Virgin", "partridgenapur tree", "onion version, Mother and Child...Sleep in half and in peace" and the shepherds who "fell on their faces and were sore afterward".He learned "the lyrics of White Christmas are what Irving Berlin wrote as well as the words." And discovered why one moppet's favorite was "Old Cumalye, Faithful". Who was Old Cumalye? Jesus' dog, of course. He did attempt to correct the singer of "We three kings safari ain't are, bearing gifts we trap us a fire".But when he mentioned those words didn't make sense, the singer replied, I know. But it rhymes and things that rhyme don't have to make sense."
     The term Xmas was explained as "10 Xmases equal one Christmas". And he learned "There is no such thing as a humbug, but it is old and grouchy when there is."
     Several boys had their own takes on Christmas mistletoe, or "kisseltoe" as one called it: "Mistletoe means watch out for slobbery girls," and. "A good thing to remember about Christmas is standing under the mistletoe is don't."
   

Never Have So Few Been Enabled to Know So Much

     Never has any individual been enabled to know so much! If someone should give a smartphone to a Masai warrior in Africa, who's never seen technology, he would have access to more information than the president of the United States did in the year 2000. That's a stunning statistic, noting just how fast information on this, that and the other thing has proliferated and been mounting up in archives everywhere.
     The media has become so invasive that it is impossible for anyone to stop their education... well, to stop their learning at least. Education presumes a planned continuum in some field of endeavor by teachers trained to impart pertinent information. Learning usually is a collection of self-interest bits of knowledge imparted by people who merely want to be read or heard.
     I've enjoyed both. I loved school, attending and/or teaching at eight colleges or universities while earning three and a half degrees. Since giving school up and going to work, my innate curiosity has kept me on that other track, learning via media-borne information. I subscribe to eight magazines that I peruse cover-to-cover. I read two books a month. And I love the Internet and television, though I do pick and choose to avoid most of the clap-trap it often parades in front of us. I merely mention all this as an introduction of sorts into the theme of this particular blog. I want to share some of the "learning clips" I've discovered in all that reading, hoping what intrigued me will also interest you.
     First off is an item stating "Music can make you mighty strong". Basically it reported that deep bass sounds (in music) are associated with "dominance". Researchers from France and the universities of Northwestern and Columbia found that people who listened to bass-heavy music reported feeling more powerful than those who listened to  the same tunes with a reduced bass level. As a sidelight, those people also generated more power-related words in a word-completion task. (Think how strong a bass player must feel!)
     Item 2: There is a real place named Shangri-La. That's a surprise for those of us who thought it only a mythical place in the 1933 novel and 1937 Frank Capra film, Lost Horizon, about a magical Himalayan paradise. Actually, it turns out, it was a big public relation success story. A town called Dukezong, located on the border of Tibet and Yunnan, renamed itself and profited with economic prosperity via traveler visits by claiming to be the inspiration for that story.
     Item 3: Of the approximately 50 tech startups of the past decade to be valued at more than ! billion, at least nine have photos at the core of their businesses -  Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Dropbox, Pinterest, Airbnb, Snapchat, Instagram and Tumblr.
     Iem 4: There is always the other side of the startups stories to consider, like Square Reader. This was a minimalist device for swiping credit cards that plugged into phones via an audio port, opening up a needed service to a massive, growing industry of micro-merchants, like baristas, food truckers,and florists. Merchants were charged a flat 2.75% rate per transaction, eliminating hidden costs and untangling antiquated charging models with credit cards. By late 2011 the company was processing $1 billion in payments annually A year later - not long after the company launched Register (software that transforms an iPad into a point-of-sale terminal) - its annual volume ballooned to $10 billion. But too much of their service cost intake was going to intermediaries they worked with and, when the execs tried to branch out, they lost their way and their customers. That's one of the biggest turn-arounds I've heard about.
     Item 5: We already have more than 16 billion active wireless-connected devices and, according to ABI Research, that number may exceed 40 billion by the year 2020.
     Item 6: According to Carrie Hessler-Radelet, director of the Peace Corps, 12 presidents in Africa credit a Peace Corps volunteer with starting them on their paths to presidencies.
     Item 7: Scanadu, a device designed by Yves Behar, pressed against your forehead will read your temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, and other vitals, then send this info to your phone via a connected app. It's awaiting FDA approval.
     Item 8: Though 51 is the average age for menopause, 13 babies are born per week (2013 average) to women 50 years of age and over. The oldest recorded birth has been at age 70 - Rajo Devi in India. The top reasons given for delaying children: career, second marriages and filling an "empty nest".
     Item 9: Unhappy with the direction of your life? Try plastic surgery on the lines in the palms of your hands, an operation that is a rage in Japan among those who believe the lines dictate one's future. The doctors say most men want to change lines associated with business and money, while most women seek to alter their love lines.
     Item 10: In a couple New Orleans funeral parlors undertakers are posing the deceased - for viewing prior to burial - in death as they appeared in life (to family members). One woman was seated at a kitchen table with a can of beer in front of her and a cigarette between her fingers. The body of a boxer was arranged standing in a boxing ring. And a former paramedic was propped up behind the wheel of an ambulance. (I wonder what they will do with their first request for a sexual scene?)
     I have no idea what you will do with these ten blips of esoteric trivia. But they gave me a column. I can only hope it was interesting, even if not useful to you too.








   

IS GENIUS WITHIN YOU?

     Google terms like "gifted" and "head trauma" and you will find intriguing results, and just maybe something really unusual about yourself! You may find there is possible genius within you without you knowing!                   Science, according to Adam Piore in an article titled "The Genius Within" in Popular Science Magazine (March 2013), is looking for a way for everyone to tap into their individual "savant-ism". It has turned out that brain damage has unleashed extraordinary talents in a small group of otherwise ordinary individuals. That, of course, is a hard way to discover the genius within you, but  imagine if science could do that for everyone without the trauma side effect!
     Actor Dustin Hoffman introduced a savant named Kim Peek in the blockbuster film "Rain Man". Peek could read two pages of a book at the same time, one with each eye, committing both to memory. He had instant recall from some 12,000 books. (He died in 2009.)
     Look what some of these 30 or so known savants (people with a remarkable talent, even though ordinary, or less, in other aspects) have done, as reported by Piore.
     Back in the 19th century "Blind Tom" Bethune, a former slave, was able to reproduce any song on the piano. He played at the White House at age 11, did a world tour at 16 and earned a fortune at that time, $750,000.
     A high school dropout named Jason Padgett, brutally beaten by muggers, is the only known person in the world able to draw complex geometric patterns called fractuals. He also claims to have discovered a mistake in pi, which could upset a long-standing mathematical "fact".
     Tony Cicoria, an orthopedic surgeon in New York was struck by lightning while in a telephone booth. He then was able to learn to compose music and play the piano, something he had never been interested in before.
     A stroke transformed a mild-mannered chiropractor named Jon Sarkin into a celebrated artist whose work has appeared in "The New Yorker" with works in galleries selling for thousands of dollars.
     Stephen Wiltshire, who is autistic, drew buildings at age 8. As an adult in 2005 he flew over the Thames River for 15 minutes, then sketched seven square miles of London's streets, rivers and buildings, precise to the windows.
     Leslie Lemke, blind since birth, at age 14 played a Tchaikovsky piano concerto after hearing it in a movie theater. He has performed since around the world, being able to reproduce thousands of songs from memory.
     After recovering from a bad auto accident at age 14, Jim Carollo made a perfect score on a mastery of geometry test without having studied, and later passed calculus exams without ever taking trigonometry.
     Daniel Tammet can master a new language in one week and do lightning-quick mathematical calculations.
     Identical autistic savant twins Flo and Kay Lyman can name the day of the week for any date in the future or past. For any date in the past they can recall what they did, what they wore, what they ate and what the weather was like.
     Allan Snyder, a neuroscientist at the University of Sydney in Australia, has studied brain functions of people with savant syndrome since 1999. He thinks such untapped potential lies within all of us, just awaiting accessibility with the right tools. We cannot readily access these abilities "because they are not conscious to us," he thinks.









   
   

Our After-Schooling Education

     Once we leave school pretty much our only education comes in two ways, through learning from our mistakes and what we see or read in the media.
     I don't wish to share my mistakes but, as an avid reader, I have recently learned a number of things in my reading, even though it is a higgeldy-piggledy mixture of trivia and not any lesson in one educative category, and I will share selected choices, in concise thumbnail bits, that intrigued me from that.

The Melon, innovated by Arye Barnehama, is a new headband that monitors your brain waves to help you stay focused. Sensors measure brain activity, then sync that data with your laptop  or mobile device via Bluetooth and alerts you if your mind is wandering. (Can't you just imagine entire classes of students in years to come all wearing these and becoming geniuses!)

Spritz, which co-founder Mark Maurer launched in Spring 2014 on the Samsung Galaxy S5 and
Gear2Smartwatch, is another new learning aid. With this device, which exploits something called the optimal recognition point - the area that the brain uses to process a word, users can digest text up to 1,000 words per minute (about five times average).

The Juno Jumper is a compact, iPhone-sized jump starter (for $100 from Junopower.com, cables sold seperately) that needs only an overnight charge to be use ready. For those of us who have occasionally had to jump-start cars with dead batteries this is neat.

Pensa is a free-to-use public streetside charging station featuring plug-ins for a variety of different mobile devices, topped by three electric-generating solar panels. The pilot program in New York and on college campuses has been sponsored by AT&T and Goal Zone, a solar device company.

The GPS Smartsole ($299) is a waterproof shoe sole with built-in GPS tracking chip that can instantly map the wearer anywhere in the world. It works with a variety of smart phones, computers and tablets. Sounds ideal for dementia sufferers, kids who wander and executives fearing kidnapping. The battery lasts five days and is easily recharged, like a cell phone.

The Zubie, costing $100, has a small "key" that plugs into the 16-pin diagnostics port hidden in your car's dashboard, syncing to a smart phone app that pinpoints the vehicle's location at all times, thereby defeating its theft. It also includes a gas price and mileage tracker, as well as a battery and engine monitor that sends alerts if either is malfunctioning. It also "tracks" how you drive (a headache saver for parents with teens drivers).

Alex Klein co-founded the Keno DIY (DoItYourself) Computer Kit (Keno.me $99) that is said to be "as intuitive as a Lego set" and will de-mystefy  the inner workings of our favorite gadgets. Once assembled, Keno syncs with a monitor or TV screen, and a very simple manual gets kids, of all ages, coding software.

Dentistry Today reports Kings College London is developing a technique that uses "electrically accelerated and enhanced remineralization...to heal teeth without drilling and filling cavities". The procedure uses a small electrical current to push the mineral to the tooth from the damaged site.

UCBerkeley, MIT and Microsoft researchers recently introduced a prototype that can make a digital screen correct a user's vision. A filter is clipped onto a phone, tablet or other device, and the user downloads software to input his or her individual prescription. The filter then interacts with the screen.

People blinded by the degenerative disease retinitis pigmentosa can now purchase the Argus II, a bionic eye that can be safely, surgically implanted and is paired with video camera-equipped glasses to help patients distinguish objects around them.

California-based VoiceVault gives business and consumers the option of attaching "vocal signatures" to documents by speaking into the receiver following a telephone prompt. Great for executives closing big deals, banking transactions and government "need-to-know" stuff.

Funomena, based in San Francisco, is part of an emerging "deep games" movement where players "win" by becoming more enlightened, empathetic people. A new crop of mostly small studios have released wildly inventive games that focus on narrative, aesthetics, and the exploration of intimate emotions rather than fast-paced action, competition and tricky game play.

Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber, the company that promotes "share the ride" in cities, was riding a $40 million evaluation high when he promised to take 400,000 vehicles off the roads in Europe to fight traffic gridlock and over-the-top air pollution. Then Uber was ordered to  stop operations in South Carolina and Madrid and was even indicted in South Korea for providing "illegal" rides.

FINDING NEW NAMES FOR ROCK BANDS IS TOUGH

     There is such a proliferation of music groups that they are running out of names for new ones.

     That was the gist of a Cox News Service story by Scott Benarde back in 1992! It was sort of a scare that didn't materialize, rather like the U.S. Patent Office back sometime in the 1800s announcing the Patent Office would close because everything that could be invented had been. 

     There are no statistics that I know of, but just listing such musical group names shows that pretty much all the cool names with animals, colors, letter combinations, et al, have been used. Bands by '92 had already used up alphabet names from ABC to XYZ, including APB, ATC, BCH, BTO, CIA, DAD, DBX, DOA, DOC, EIEIO, EU, EMF, EPMD, ESP, INXS, FOC, FM, KGB, KLF, KMC, KMFDM, K-YZE, NWA, NRBQ, OTB, RTZ, TKA, TSOL, UTFO, UFO, ZTC and REO Speedwagon. If you remember but a handfull of them, don't fret. You're about average, along with me. Most of them didn't move our music to new heights.

     But those are only the start of our list. Look at the mess of numbers once used: One, 2 Deep, 2 In A Room, 2 Nu, 2 Live Crew, 2 Smooth MCs, 2 Bigg MC, 2 Nasty 4 Radio, Three Grand, 3 Merry Widows, 3 Mustaphas 3, 4 Way, 4-Sure, Take 6, 7 Seconds, After 7, Crazy 8's, 9 Ways to Sunday, ll, 13 Engines, 21 Guns, Catch 22, 24-7 Spyz, 29 Palms, 38 Special, Level 42, the 49ers, 54-40, Highway 101, 101 North, 220 Volt, 808 State, 1927, Oaktown-3-5-7, 10,000 Maniacs, and The Millions. Some crews combined letters and numbers, like B-52s, U2, UB40, L7, K9 Posse, and WWIII. 

     They all probably h;ad a reason for the names chosen, but I don't (can't) explain them. I just report them.

     And don't think we are done. Colors were used, but black seemed to be the favorite. Included were Black, Black Bambi, Black Box, Black Britain, Black Crowes, Blackfoot, and Black Velvet. The other colors are even harder to remember. I can't think of any still working.

     For some reason the term "Big" was used a lot: Big Audio Dynamite, Big Brother and Holding Company, Big Country, Big Car, Big Bam Boo, Big Bang Theory, Big Daddy Kane, Big Dipper, Big Dish, Big Pig, Big Drill Car, Big Shoulders, Big Wheel, Big Youth, Mr. Big, and Bigga.  "Ice" was also a favorite, judging from Icehouse, Ice-T, Ice Cube, Vanilla Ice, Ice MC, Ice Cream Tee, Icicle Works,  and Ice Capades. Tribe" too got considerable play with Tribe After Tribe, A Tribe Called Quest, Rhythm Tribe, Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E., Tribe, and Tribal Tech. 

     Names using Club, Gang, Posse, Boys, Crew and Def were close to overkill. And space doesn't permit even getting into place names (Boston, Chicago, etc) used. But names of living creatures offered a little welcome imagination, like White Lion and the Iguanas, along with some fish - An Emotional Fish, School of Fish, Fishbone, Kingfish and Phish.

     It got so newcomer outfits were using complete sentences to identify themselves. Maybe you will remember They Might Be Giants, We Are Going to Eat You, What Makes Donna Twirl?, They Eat Their Own, Pop Will Eat Itself, I See Why and I Don't Know. 

     Back to our original sentence. Seems we shouldn't have worried. It was soon discovered that the English language is infinite when it comes to music groups and their images they think describe themselves and sets them apart. In just this morning's entertainment pages I noticed several new group names all due over the weekend at a local Rendezvous in the Park showcase: Blue Funk Jailbreak, The Hoodoo Two, Yellow Dog Flats, An American Forest, Dawn of Life and Genius in Remission. On another page I found more: Chastity Belt, Smashclub, Blackwater Prophet, Youryoungbody, Childbirth, Bread and Circus, and Diazepam. And, like I said, I don't explain 'em, I'm just reportkng 'em.

     

     

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?

     "Why did the chicken cross the road?" has been a question most often used as an entre to a humorous answer in bits at the bottom of periodicals' pages, like in Reader's Digest. But my personal favorite collection - possibly because of my fling in exotic academe -  comes from a University of Oregon Philosophy Department Web page of some time ago. Here are the answers those philosophers, more than somewhat tongue-in-cheek, came up with:

Plato: "For the greater good."
Karl Marx: "It was a historical inevitability."
Nietzsche: "Because, if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you."
B.F.Skinner: "Because the external influences, which had pervaded its sensorium since birth, had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own free will."
Jean-Paul Sartre: "In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary  to cross the road."
Albert Einstein: "Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference."
Pyrrho the Skeptic: "What road?"
The Sphinx: "You tell me."
Buddha: "If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken nature."
Emily Dickinson: "Because it could not stop for death."
Ralph Waldo Emerson: "It didn't cross the road, it transcended it."
Mark Twain: "The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated."

     As a humor ploy, this question has become almost rhetorical - like a mere shilly-shally for  someone unable to make up his or her mind toward a problematic decision. But the above answer group does point up the theme for this blog entry - the humor in rhetorical questions. Some of my choicest finds have been:
 
Did God invent time to keep everything from happening at once?
Why are so many of today's economic problems yesterday's solutions?
Why is it that, when you run into a man with real enthusiasm for hard work, he turns out to be your boss?
Why is it that the whisper of temptation can be heard farther than the loudest call to duty?
If there is a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, what is at the beginning"
Why do we never hear father-in-law jokes?
How can banks charge a fee for "'insufficient funds'?"
Are children who act in R-rated movies allowed to see them?
How come Tarzan never had a beard?
Have you ever noticed that, on soap operas, they never watch soap operas?
How do they get "Keep off the grass" signs on the grass?
When Frenchmen swear do they say, "Pardon my English?"
Why isn't "palindrome" spelled the same way backwards?
Why isn't "phonetics" spelled the way it sounds?
Why is a package sent by land carrier called a shipment, while a package sent by ship is called cargo?
How do you write zero in Roman numerals?
Why do we say "TV set" when it's a single item?
Have you noticed that the things that come to those who wait are usually the things left by those who got there first?
Why do we call them "apartments" when they are attached to each other?
While astronauts are already weightless, how will a Slim-Fast diet affect them?
When dogs bark for hours on end, why don't they get hoarse?
When I walk my dog - considering he has twice as many legs as I do - is he getting twice as much exercise as I am or half as much?
Do fish ever sneeze?
What is the purpose of ear lobes, other than to hang things on?
In the extreme Northern and Southern Hemispheres, where it is light for half the year and dark for the other half, do roosters crow only once a year?
   

COMICAL REAL ESTATE CLASSIFIEDS

     It's rather amazing what a bit of humor and imagination can do in business. Take, for example, a friend of mine starting his own small realty office. One of the first properties listed with him was a house really needing repairs. The ad he went with stated: "The ideal home for the do-it-yourselfer. Needs a little work, but the price is right." Then he listed the price and added, "Comes with a brand new hammer, free of charge." It sold quite quickly.
     Even more of a smiler was the ad in a Texas paper in an air base town: "Five dollars reward for furnishing house or apartment for officer's family. Have twin boys, aged 3, but will drown them if you insist. Dial ,,,,".
     On the other hand, there are more elite realtors. One ad from such a one awhile back in Greenwich Village stated, "Loveliest old house of West Fourth, $30,000, four floors filled with priceless antiques, furniture, drapes, china, etc. Shown only to Americans of class."
     It never hurts to list those extras. Note the ad for a "Modern house with four bedrooms, 3 baths and rumpus room in the cellar. Extra attraction: the family next door is building a swimming pool."
     It was only a short time after that ad appeared that a sign appeared on that property, stating only, "Too Late!"
     Perhaps the oddest ad I've come across was listed by a Mr. Norman Pickersgill in Wakefield, England. He was trying to sell his bathroom. The catch was that - though it had modern equipment and was a neat little rustic brick structure with a red tiled roof - it stood all alone in the middle of a 3 1/2-acre field.
     The realtor explained that Norman, a grocer, used to live in a trailer in that field and, since the trailer didn't boast a bathroom, he had spent 400 pounds ($1,200) building one adjacent.
     But the previous month Norman had moved into a house and he wanted to sell the field - but whoever buys it has to take the bathroom too.
     Another offbeat ad was in the Stanford University daily newspaper: "Wanted: large house for 47 young men. Must have 16 different addresses." Responses were to be directed to the house manager of a fraternity group who had been forbidden, after an unusually boisterous long-lasting party, "to allow more than three members to live at the same address".
     Sometimes the most simple-seeming ads have the wildest background stories. A soft sell ad from the real estate page of London's Observer listed: "Victorian residence in fashionable Chelsea. Lease 51 years. Bargain: 7850 pounds." Some scamp on the staff visited the site and was moved to josh the rest of the story.
     "This squat, rather repellent early Victorian lower middle class residence offers to the dull and comfortably off an interesting background of squalor previously available only to the very poor. The decor, where it is not garish cheap wallpaper, is a fashionable mud brown - or is it only dirt? The intercommunicating doors of the two rather mean living rooms have been torn away, giving one a 26-foot room for parties, with a lavatory basin conveniently placed at one end where one can wash one's hands after greeting the dirtier guests. Six other rooms. The kitchen sink, in the corner of most of them, lends a touch of social realism. A particularly foul subterranean bathroom, with antique bath, coal-fired clothes broiler. I could find only one lav, but there is a small foul patch of earth behind house, which only an English Estate Agent would call a garden, wherein, as Swift put it, a woman could "pluck a rose".
     Idt takes all kinds, even in the realtor profession!

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

     Out of the mouths of youngsters come some of the most embarrassing remarks their parents ever made.
     Youngsterisms can also be surprisingly logical with their answers. Like the six-year old, lost in a supermarket and hollering "Martha! Martha!" at top lung power. He was chided by his mother, after they were reunited, that he shouldn't call her Martha, but Mother." His reply, "I know, but this store is FULLA mothers!"
     Or the moppet lunching off a place mat featuring the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle, where he gazed with solemn eyes at the Mother Goose scene of the cow jumping over the moon. Pretty soon he turned to his mother and said, "Isn't that silly? It would take at least a three-stage rocket to reach the moon."
     Or the little girl in the toy shop when a clerk showed her an elaborate doll. "Now this model walks, talks, cries and drinks," rhapsodied the clerk. "Oh, I have a baby sister who does all that," the tot replied scornfully, "I just want a doll."
     Another little girl, attending her first auto show with her dad, watched in wonder as a new Pontiac revolved slowly under very bright spotlights. "Daddy, LOOK! They're barbecuing a car."
     I reminded a young neighbor boy he had forgotten his sweater, laying on a porch swing, when he started to leave after visiting with me. "Yeah," he answered, "that's just something I have to put on when my mom gets chilly."
     That's the same kid who explained the age of a new neighbor to me this way, "He's so little he isn't even a number yet." And, in arguing with his little sister, ended that tiff with, "Your brain is just like a Teflon frying pan. Nothing will stick to it."
     Just as bright was the comment of a four-year-old upon arising shortly before dawn with his mother, who was tending her new baby. "Mommy, Jesus has turned on the lights."
     Then there was the family that lent its pet hamster to a neighbor to mate with his female, with the result being seven new hamsters. The neighbor thought this a good time to acquaint his nine-year-old son with the tale of the birds and bees. "Son, you probably have some questions about the hamsters and their new babies," he said as introduction. "Yes, I do," the boy replied. "Can I charge a stud fee?"
     Even five-year-olds can be practical like that. Overheard in a department store was this moppet studying the escalator. "What do they do when the basement gets full of steps?" she asked.
     Which puts an exclamation point on Herbert V. Prochnow's statement, "If children didn't ask questions, how could they find out that we know so little?"
 
(Credit, in order, La Vida Witkowski, The United Mine Workers Journal, Mrs. L. Binder in the Catholic Digest, San Diego Union, Mary L. Cotton of Memphis, TN, Minneapolis Tribune Almanac, Unkn own,