irony

Mailbag

~ Lee Swanson ~ 1 Comment

A couple of interesting things popped up in the mail this week.

Stuffed in along with the gas bill was a flyer titled “Five Ways to Heat Your Home for Less.”  None of them will work of course, because if people actually did use less gas to heat their homes the gas company would raise the rates because in the utility world less is more.  More is more too, and they like that better, but they have to at least pretend they are being good citizens by encouraging savings and conservation.

Anyway, the number one tip for how to heat your home for less is this:  Set your furnace thermostat to 68 degrees or lower when you’re at home. You can save 5% for every two degrees you turn the thermostat down.

In other words, the best way to heat your home for less is to heat your home less.

This same advice can be followed in other endeavors.  To save on doctor bills, stay well. To save money at a restaurant, don’t order food.  To save money driving, park.

I knew there was a reason I never look at the junk attached to the gas bill.

The other thing I found intriguing was an e-mail from the Pew Research Center.  The Pew Internet and American Life Project did a study titled Why Most Facebook Users Get More Than They Give.

Here’s what they found:

  • 40% of Facebook users in our sample made a friend request, but 63% received at least one request
  • Users in our sample pressed the like button next to friends’ content an average of 14 times, but had their content “liked” an average of 20 times
  • Users sent 9 personal messages, but received 12
  • 12% of users tagged a friend in a photo, but 35% were themselves tagged in a photo

Yet more evidence the average person is sub-normal.

Dentist

~ Lee Swanson ~ Leave a comment

I went to the dentist this morning and it struck me (though not literally) what an arcane experience that is.  Yes they can take x-rays without developing films and they can drill without filling your mouth with hoses, nozzles and vacuum tubes.

But this was just a cleaning and it is the least high tech thing that is done at a dentist’s office, with the possible exception of the three month old stack of magazines in the waiting room.

When the dental hygienist hygienes your dentistry she still scrapes away at your enamel with wires attached to a stick.  And I’m not sure why.  I don’t use a sharp piece of metal when I clean my teeth.  I do use a piece of string, which is another ridiculous ritual altogether.  And I have to admit I don’t really know what she’s doing.  All I can really see, after all, is what’s reflected in her glasses which means there’s a limit not only to what I can see but also to how much I care.  I hear the scraping and the occasional vacuuming but beyond that I neither know nor care what is going on.

There does come the moment when the hygienist’s assistant comes in to the cubicle and they turn a great deal of attention to my gums.  Now the sharp piece of wire is poked into my gums while the hygienist calls out numbers.  When she’s done, she asks if I know what that all means.  Since she does it twice a year and has for several years I’ve got a pretty good idea what it means.  But she asks anyway.  And I answer anyway.  I unfailingly answer “yes I do.  It means I’m twelve under par.”

She laughs, unfailing.  It’s part of the ritual.

I may be alone in this, but I don’t mind going to the dentist.  I’ve been going to this particular dentist, with a break of about six years when I moved out of town, for thirty years.  Unlike many of his patients, we haven’t talked much.  For one thing, my mouth is usually pried open and filled with his hands.  And truth be told, I don’t talk much to anyone.  Cheryl’s been going to my dentist for about six weeks and knows more about him and his entire staff than I have learned in thirty years.  There’s no real surprise in that.  Either.

Anyway, this whole dental teeth cleaning ritual thing mystifies me.  It seems primitive.  Maybe not primitive, but un-evolved perhaps.

We should be able to do better.  But at least we do what we do.  If we didn’t we’d be uncleansed, unsophisticated.  We’d be British.

Fashion Advice

~ Lee Swanson ~ Leave a comment

There’s a guy I often see in the morning when the dogs take me for a walk.  He wears a blue t-shirt, work boots, black socks, denim shorts and clip-on suspenders.  The suspenders just sort of top it off.  Big, wide suspenders clipped to his shorts. He’s a short, round little man and in a couple months he could trade them in for red suspenders and get a job at any department store on earth, except that he rarely says anything more than “hello” and even that only grudgingly.

Looking at him as he came down the street this morning I couldn’t help but wonder, “does he think that’s a good look?”

I, on the other hand, wore my usual morning walk uniform — running shoes in which I’ve never run, nylon warm up pants and a white t-shirt with some sort of logo on it.

One of the advantages and disadvantages of a lifetime in television news is a large collection of free t-shirts and caps. Advantage because I haven’t had to buy a t-shirt in a long time, maybe ever. And disadvantage because many of them have dates on them.

Today’s shirt, for instance, was “ABC News – The Vote 2004” – from either the Democratic convention that nominated Kerry and Edwards in Boston or the Republican convention that re-nominated Bush and Cheney in New York.  I was at both and don’t recall where the shirt came from.  I do remember coming away from New York firmly convinced that there was no way in hell those two were going to get re-elected.  It was the same feeling I had four years earlier in Philadelphia as we watched waves of henna-headed women stand beneath the podium and chant “Bush and Dick.”

The t-shirt drawer is pretty full.  And there’s a stack of baseball caps in the closet at least three feet high.  I look at that stuff and I’m sometimes reminded of the farmers where I grew up.  No farmer in America has ever bought a cap.  And not many bought jackets.  The joke was, “why don’t farmers wear tennis shoes?” “Because seed corn companies don’t give them away.”

So, now as I walk down the street, anyone who bothers to notice knows my t-shirt is seven years old. Not the worst fashion statement and not even the oldest piece of clothing I own.  There’s a sweater from the 1982 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, for instance.  It’s been well cared for and is in pretty good shape.  Invariably when I wear it, someone will look at the logo and say “I wasn’t even born then.”

But I’m ready for them. “This ‘old’ sweater,”   I point out “is from the U.S. Open where Tom Watson made what’s no doubt the most famous golf shot in the history of the Open, the iconic chip shot from the rough behind the 17th green for birdie to win the championship and defeat Jack Nicklaus.  And I was there.  Saw it with my own two aging eyes.  And, because photo credentials were easier to get in those days, have the picture to prove it.”

They invariably look at me, shrug and say “yeah, well it still kinda fits.”

Smart ass kids.

Save The Date

~ Lee Swanson ~ Leave a comment

Stricken by drought and unprecedented high temperatures brought on by the global warming hoax, the future of the humble but beloved date is in doubt.  Already a brown color that is distasteful in anyone’s description of a fruit and rather badly shriveled, it is hardly what one would choose to eat unless stranded in the desert.  Now, even there the date is smaller, harder and rarer.

Native to the deserts of Northern Africa, the date palm grows in oases fed since biblical times by underground springs.  Now the springs are sprung and the date palm is falling on hard times.  This can only mean bad things for the date and those who make their living selling it at exorbitant prices to starving nomads—not to mention what it means to the nomads and lovers of date nut bread.

What’s more, the winds have changed and are no longer favorable for the date palm.  As anyone who has studied the date knows, male and female flowers are produced on separate date palm trees, forcing the trees to pollinate in public to bear fruit. This was once accomplished by the wind, but without what can only be described as palm tree artificial insemination, it now takes multiple “date dates” to produce a date.  Those who care deeply about the date help swab the receptive stigma of the female with the potent pollen of the male.  While this would seem to be embarrassing for the date palm, we have been assured the trees enjoy the process, and many people who travel great distances to participate in the ritual find it extremely self-gratifying as well.

Today we’re happy to report there is hope as an ever growing number of people are becoming aware of the necessity to save the date.

Plan now to be in the Coachella Valley on August first as people from around the globe gather to draw attention to this cause and save the date.  Join hands with date lovers from every continent at the Date Shake Shop in Indio and form what can only be called an International Date Line.

Save the Date – Save the Date – Save the Date – Save the Date – Save the Date

A Cause You Can Sink Your Teeth In