Volume 13, Number 27, July 6, 2008

(Check out my blog at: http://jpdave.blogspot.com/ and feel free to join the crowds and leave a comment! Please take a look and see what’s happening; there’s no telling what you might find. The latest entry is from a guest blogger.)

Greetings, and thanks for joining me for another week. Starting us off are a few news stories you may have missed. First, thinking outside the box. Faced with its Alzheimer's residents' penchant to amble away, the Benrath Senior Center in Dusseldorf, Germany, came up with a fresh approach to help: a counterfeit bus stop (an exact replica of a real one) out front. Wandering residents might be attracted to the familiar colors and design of the kiosk (because long-term memory is typically still robust) and wait there for a bus instead of trying to "go home" on foot. But short-term, the resident is typically oblivious to how long he has been waiting and will remain until a Center employee notices him and can lead him back into the home (which often is easy because the resident has by then forgotten why he is sitting there). London's Daily Telegraph

Next, hoyyy! A warehouse on Chicago's West Side is "the world capital of fake (latex) vomit, where it is still made the old-fashioned way, ladle by ladle, formed and coagulated.” Though it is not as popular as 50 years ago (7,000 units sold yearly, compared to 60,000 then), Fun Inc. President Graham Putnam said, still, "It's the best vomit on the market." According to a Chicago Tribune reporter: "The texture is soft and sturdy, pliable and complex, with ridges of multihued solid chunks looking like a jagged lunar landscape ... perfect for the bathroom, refrigerator, auto seat or sidewalk." I used to have one of those! To add even more veracity, I believe the instructions said to sprinkle with some water. I even had a fake pile of dog poop, which caused my dear mother no end of “eeeuw” moments (maybe the situation was exacerbated because we didn’t have a dog).

Finally, man’s best friend… but not woman’s? An Illinois woman says that while she was asleep her beloved miniature dachshund gnawed off her right big toe. Linda Floyd told the Alton Telegraph for a story that her beloved Roscoe was euthanized (that means “put to sleep,” which is another euphemism for killed) because of safety concerns (can you imagine if we did that with people). The 56-year-old says she has no feeling in her toes because of nerve damage from diabetes. She discovered the toe missing after waking from a nap. She called her daughter, who phoned 911. A veterinarian says the toe had been bandaged because of a healing hangnail. That might have somehow attracted the dog. So let me see if I get this right - the dog was quickly killed for chewing off a toe while convicted murderers sit in prison for an average of twelve years until they’re executed. What’s wrong with this picture?

From the Associated Press, going out with a bang. One of the fireworks that burst above one city this year contained a bit of cremated remains - a fitting tribute, organizers say, to the man who ran the annual event for 40 years. Meredith Smith died back in February at age 74. About a half-teaspoon of his ashes was put in a fireworks shell that created a white burst in the sky for the finale of the show last Thursday night. "I can't think of a better way," said family friend Kevin Moss. He was also memorialized through hundreds of T-shirts referring to the tribute as "the last shot." Smith, a school maintenance worker, was a trained pyrotechnician. His widow, Charlotte, said they started the fireworks shows as a community service and sometimes paid for them themselves. (I have cremation already in place for myself. My wife said she’d put my ashes in an hourglass so she can finally see me do some work for a change!

Some good news… I think (from My Way News). Britain's High Court has ruled that Pringles are not a potato snack, and therefore are not subject to their value-added tax. The recent ruling by Justice Nicholas Warren is expected to save millions for the manufacturer, Procter & Gamble Co. (PG). Warren overruled a VAT Tribunal decision that Pringles should be subject to the 17.5-percent tax because it met the definition of "potato crisps, potato sticks, potato puffs and similar products made from the potato, or from potato flour, or from potato starch." The judge found, however, that Pringles were only 42 percent potato, and thus exempt (so, uh, what’s the other 58 percent?). P&G spokeswoman Marina Barker says the company is pleased with the ruling. (Ha! Next thing you know “they’ll” be telling us that “many ‘junk fruit beverages’ are nutrient-void beverages, commonly masked as fruit’ ‘juice,’ ‘drinks’ or ‘cocktails.’  Most contain 10 percent or less of pure fruit juice, and lots of water, sugar and additives.” That from AskDrSears.com)

Holiday Time. (1) July 6th is National Fried Chicken Day. (2) July 10 is Clerihew Day. (3) July 11 is National Cheer Up the Lonely Day. Now, since honesty is the best policy, I am not too big to admit I didn’t know what a clerihew is. So, I had my staff check it out and I learned: A Clerihew (named after Edmund Clerihew Bentley) has the following properties:

• It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; it pokes fun at mostly famous people
• It has four lines of irregular length (for comic effect); the third and fourth lines are usually longer than the first two
• The rhyme structure is AABB; the subject matter and wording are often humorously contrived in order to achieve a rhyme
• The first line consists solely (or almost solely) of the subject's name.

Clerihews are not satirical or abusive, but they target famous individuals and reposition them in an absurd or commonplace setting, often with an over-simplified and slightly garbled description (Wikipedia). One I enjoyed:

Did Descartes
Depart
With the thought
"Therefore I'm not"?
And one I wrote:
In print, Berman’s Bits
Always fits
The right number of pages
To line bird cages.

Finally, a few quickies I hope leave you with a smile: (1) When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate. (2) A thief fell and broke his leg in wet cement. He became a hardened criminal. (3) The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground. (4) In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes. (5) When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds. (6) A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine.

Later.