Buffalo Gal

To hear it from the local Liberals on talk radio (Heitkamp and McFeeley) the big crisis in North Dakota swirls around former Governor Ed Schafer who is conducting meetings on the subject of ND’s oil taxes.
Schafer is traveling around the state to give his information concerning NOT raising taxes on oil companies on the premise that ND should not do anything to kill the Goose That Lays Golden Eggs (oil income). The liberal talk show hosts are foaming at the mouths but the foam is more about Schafer’s bus and who is paying for it and other rabbit trails that they would not follow at all if there were a “D” behind Ed’s name. It is almost amusing to listen to them rant and rave.
Anything Republican Schafer does will be dissed even if the advice he gives is good for North Dakotans to consider. You would think from listening to Joel and Mike on KFGO that Schafer is the devil personified and he is only trying to help that familiar liberal nemesis…BIG BUSINESS…..you know those guys who have created so many jobs in ND and raised a lot of revenue for the state as well. What’s next for the Libs…shut down ther coal mines? Crisis, Crisis, Crisis!!! Simmer down and quit running your mouths.

Things are not getting much better in Egypt either as an international Crisis continues to build hour by hour.
The present President (Obama) is gloing to be blamed as the President who lost Turkey. Lebanon, and Egypt…even if it is the general population that is causing the riots and burnings and lootings in Cairo and a few other places. Jimmy Carter got the blame for losing Iran back in 1979-80.
Some Bedouins have made off with some national treasures but the main national museum with Egypts national ancient treasures is protected by the Egyptian military. The protestors will only be satsified by the departure of Hosni Mubarak. One wonders which devil is worst…Mubarak or anyone who succeeds him. The protestors could really get trampled if the wrong government takes over….the Islamic Brotherhood is feared by many if it rises to the top.
I read a piece by an Israeli journalist this morning in an Israeli news outlet (HAARETZ.com) The author, Aluf Benn, gives a persective different from US outlets like the cable news channels and the AP and UP and US newspaper reporters, if they still dare to stay in the besieged country. The airport at Cairo is the scene of panicky foreigners trying to get out as quickly as possible. I heard an interview with a representative of Lufthansa the German airline. Flights are leaving regularly but there are so many who are at the airport wanting to leave that there is another crisis at that site. Fist fights have broken out among the more hot-headed and impatient people who want to leave.
A quote from Benn’s article:
“The street revolts in Tunisia and Egypt showed that the United States can do very little to save its friends from the wrath of their citizens. Now Obama will come under fire for not getting close to the Egyptian opposition soon enough and for not demanding that Mubarak release his opponents from jail. He will be accused of not pushing Benyamin Netanyahu hard enough to stop the settlements and thus indirectly quell the rising tides of anger in the Muslim world. But that’s a case of 20:20 hindsight. There’s no guarantee that the Egyptian or Tunisian masses would have been willing to live in a repressive regime even if the construction {in Israel} was halted and a few opposition figures were released from jail.”

Another observation about a possble mistake on the part of the Obama administration by Benn:

“Obama apparently believed the main problem of the Middle East was the Israeli occupation, and focused his policy on demanding suspension of construction in settlements and and the abortive attempt to renew peace talks. That failure led him to back off the peace process in favor of concentrating on heading off an Israeli-Iranian war.”

Now the ruins of that policy lie in shambles with the citizens of two countries..Tunisia and Egypt..showing the way for what really is causing the boil-over in two nations. The citizens are tired of being ruled by dictators, living in poverty because of the dictatorial powers and the lack of jobs for ordinary working class people….plus the repression of individual rights. The citizens are fed up with their leaders and are forced to riot and burn. In the United States, so far, we can change our leaders with elections. Let us hope and pray that we never have to face what the Egyptian and Tunisian people have had to face with their dictators in power. There are NO true elections in those circumstances and the citizens have to take matters into their own hands, risking death or injury in the process.
The Crises are evident now….. but not for the reasons this American Administration thought–putting all its eggs in the wrong basket.

Our Boy Presdident…who many worried would be inept in foreign affairs…is attending classes in the School of Hard Knocks.

I finally am getting a chance to write again. My Slave (a.k.a. Buffalogal) is pretty selfish as far as the blog goes. But I know that a Border Collie named Chance gets to add his thoughts to his lady’s blog (Farside of Fifty)…so I say let’s have some equal opportunity for Cats. It is a pretty boring morning again…no sunshine so I cannot lay in a patch of sun like I like to do.
It is gray and even snowing again…what else is new around here? No wonder I am so bored. Ever since November I have been a total housecat because it is too cold for my little paws to go outside like I do in warmer weather.
But I am wondering if I will ever be an outside/inside kitty again…..our neighbor Jane saw a timber wolf in a field near her house..which shook her up because she has a dog grooming business and a boarding kennel..but she is all fenced in… but she got kinda nervous seeing that big wolf. Then my Slave’s guy saw wolf tracks out by our pole building and that was a bad sign. I am not at all interested in being outside right now anyway. I did go into the garage a few days ago when we had that heat wave for a couple of days. I even sat down on a wet towel that was on the floor because I had a garage mouse trapped underneath a car. The mouse must have flattened itself against a tire because I could not get at it without getting my delicate paws wet. The Man has put some black tarps on the floor and they have puddles on them…he says better on the tarps than on the floor what with all salt in those big hunks that fall off the fenders. I am a smart cat…I am almost 13 but I still have all my marbles and I eavesdrop on all their conversations so I know what is going on. I never did get that mouse to run for it because I would have caught it. I only have 3 legs after my bad experience when some guy shot at me when I was in the woods and I had to have my right front leg amputated. But I hate to think about it so I am not talking about it any more. It was a really bad time in one of my nine lives but I get along just fine. I am still fast and I can still catch mice and chipmunks and voles and such.
Back to the boring winter days: there is nothing to do around here except sit on the chair my Slave has put by our biggest window…in the summer it’s a door but not now. I can see birds at the bird feeders on the deck but even that gets boring after you have seen them all eating seed and suet for weeks and weeks. And there is that heavy glass between me and the birds. I do sometimes crouch and switch my tail when the finches get on the deck and come really close to the glass. My mouth also trembles….they are so close…so close…and I cannot do a darn thing about it except to twitch and tremble and have adrenalin rushes that lead to nothing.
I hope I don’t forget how to hunt when the warm weather comes. I can’t catch birds anyway–they fly away and I have to lie in wait in long grass for stupid mice to run by me. It is so easy it is barely worth mentioning.

One nice thing about being an inside kitty is that these people I own let me have a lot of lap sitting time. I spite of being so well trained by me, my Slave does not get much lap sitting time. I prefer the Man and I love to sit on his lap when he is at his laptop doing stuff. I purr and rub my cheeks on him and even to rub his face with mine but he balks when I get in his face. The Slave gets jealous because she says she does EVERYTHING for me and I won’t sit on her lap.
She gets plenty of chances to pet me several times a night because I am still nocturnal and I give her opportunities for giving me attention when she is asleep. I jump up on her about 4 times every night and she is a real robot then…reaches out to pet me and call me “such a kitty”. The Doofuses sometimes call me “Sucha” instead of my usual names….Princess Kitty, Miss Kitty and my REAL name–Sarah. I just put up with it all…it means I get lots of attention which is what I want anyway.
I have been whiling away these boring winter days by sleeping about 20 hours out of 24. This is normal for a cat. But I kind of feel like I am hibernating like other animals do all winter. I cannot go without food however so I have to wake up and eat and drink once a day at least. I can pretty much set my own schedule so well trained is my Slave. It is fun to see her jump up and fulfil my demands.
I am even getting bored with blogging so I am going back to my special chair..or one of my many sleeping places—-on a bed in the grandkids’s room, on a big puffy blanket on a nice bench in the living room or down to my own condo in the basement where I have my real kitty nesting spot. There are no sunshine patches today…….Ho Hum…I am so bored.

I am troubled by the chaos in Egypt and its implications for the mideast and the rest of the nations…Egypt is a powerful country mostly based on their military strength which has influenced the past three governments there, at the very least. Mubarak is from the military….so was Gamel Abdul Nasser the president before Anwar Sadat….who seemed different from the others before him.
I am troubled by the lack of direction of our own nation..especially in the arena of foreign affairs. The currrent “leaders” are making contradictory statements and also sound weak and indecisive. I have feared this since the inauguration of Barack Obama who seems distant and uninterested in what happens in other nations. We have had two- plus years of windy, empty rhetoric, over which the Mainstream Media goes into ecstasy everytime the president reads words off his telepromter. But his words are so empty of meaning. He seems to be posturing..trying to say what seems right for the moment but nothing gets done.
Worse yet, he seems “flat”…he seems bored.
One commenter wrote this regarding my previous blog today: “Without a vision, the people perish”. I wonder if WE are that people?
Additionally troubling is an essay I read a few days ago written by Ed Lasky ,a prominent national writer. Lasky speculates about the current president and his cabinet members.
“The notion that the White House team has been bereft of ideas on the jobs front is the focus of a new forthcoming Sunday’s NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE article. (Lasky’s editorial essay was published on January 25 this past Tuesday)
“Peter Baker takes a journey down the White House Rabbit Hole and writes a fascinating behind the scenes account of Obama and his hapless economic team. In an advance copy obtained by the “Tatler” Baker writes that three days before Christmas, Obama sits down with his economic team to pen ideas for the State of the Union message. Baker writes ‘He was looking for bold ways to bring down unemployment. The ideas presented to him, though, seemed familiar and uninspired. ‘You know guys,’ he’d said according to someone in the room, ‘I’ve told you before I want you to come to me with ideas the EXCITE me.’ Nothing he was hearing excited him. This could set the tone for the rest of his term.” (Ed Lasky and Peter Baker)

Baker also outlines how poorly the economic team functioned. Talking to all of Obama’s advisors was like “picking through the wreckage of a messy divorce.”

And THIS is a writer from the bowels of the LIBERAL and formerly PRO-OBAMA media.

Now I am contemplating that Obama’s foreign policy team is just as out- to- lunch and impotent as his economic team.

Obama wants to be EXCITED….but he seems to be bored with his presidency just like he has become bored with his past postitions. He was bored as a United States Senator from Illinois…hardly ever being present at his senatorial job. He complained about other Senators flapping their gums, sighing wearily “Yak, Yak, Yak.” He passed a note during a committee meeting led by then Senator Joe Biden and that said “Shoot me now.” (Ed Lasky)

He is bored by drafting legislation: he does not do that. He is the antitheses of a policy wonk like Bill Clinton was.

He is bored by suburbs. He said that “I’m not interested in the suburbs. The suburbs bore me.” (Lasky)

He was a bored community organizer and went to Harvard with the idea of being able to gain political power to be able to have a big impact.

So what does the President get excited about, Lasky asks.

“He is excited by adoring crowds. He is exited about playing basketball games with superstars. His own ‘dreamteam’. He is excited about giving sports commentary on national TV. He is excited by cool-looking boondoggles like the wasteful green energy projects he touts,or high-speed rail, electric cars, solar projects, and windmills. He is like a young boy with shiny new toys he wants to show off. Why do taxpayers have to fund his needs for excitement? He is a kid with a credit card who gets thrilled with the mere idea of spending money—especially other people’s money. We have a bored teenage and a shopoholic as President.”

And now Egypt is disintegrating before our eyes. Will that exicte him in any way????

In Egypt, yes but also elsewhere…like try MSNBC who either accepted a resignation or outright.. fired..Keith Olbermann. Now there is news of Ed Schultz’s treading on yet more thin ice at that cable network. The bosses (new ones) have banned Schultz’s show segment called “Psycho Talk” in which Ed attacks right wingers (his perceptions) and others he hates. Schultz was one of the commentary people on cable TV that recently preached a need for civility but he has not quite grasped that concept where he is concerned. He once again came close to being fired himself after it was learned that he sent personal email responses to two of his viewers calling one a P – - – K (that part of the rose stem that sticks you painfully) and the other one a “right wing scum bag”. So much for civility from the ever-angry Ed Schultz. It seems like MSNBC has majored in hiring and keeping people like Olbermann (until recently) and Schultz who have no self- control over thier personal demons of explosive anger and unchecked Narcissim….commonly called a BIG EGO. I predict it won’t be long before Schultz goes over the top again and will be dismissed. His tantrum on the set last fall in which he said he was going to burn down the whole f——–g place nearly got him fired. He was angry because he did not think he was not getting promoted enough by MSNBC. Dear, dear!

And then there’s Egypt. Today’s many reports on online news outlets have Egyptian police either joining the protest or shooting at them…62 are dead in the riots and 200+ injured and the raging mobs keep getting bigger; looting is occurring to the point where even neighborhoods are seeing the boarding up of homes…not only businesses. It is a case of a people gone totally amok….. screaming for the removal of Hosni Mubarak but having no choice…no leader at all—to replace him. In a “Washington Post” news item today the question is what will happen if the Muslim Brotherhood..a thinly veiled cover for Al Quaida…moves in on opportune situation and sets up an Islamic state? If this happens, the Egyptian protesters of Mubarak may wish him back if a Taliban-like regime takes power. They are bellowing about the lack of freedom under Mubarak…what will they get if a takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood/AlQuiada happens?

I have had the thought that a nation like the United States—or any other nation–cannot really intervene in a meaningful or helpful way. It seems to be time for the U.S. to “butt out” of every other nation’s governments and riots and uprisings. What are we going to do? Bomb them? Send in our military? We have seen the consequences of this sort of action way too many times already…Bosnia, Iraq, Afhganistgan……to what purpose? More Americans killed over other people’s internal wars and disputes. We could pull the 2 billion a month we send to the Egyptian government. I bet they’d notice that.

But if we take an Isolationist approach we will still be affected by other country’s decisions. A militant Islamic Egypt is just as bad as our already Islamist Iran. There is not good solution. If they would just stay in their countries and deal with each other—fine. But they won’t and therein lies the rub, as Shakespeare put it.

Another militant Islamic takeover in the already- volatile mideast is not going to be good for our country…..or any one else’s.

Today is the anniversary of the explosion of the spacecraft
“Challenger”. An online news outlet has this question: “where were you when the Challenger exploded?” There follows a video of Americans recalling that fateful moment. Many of them had been in their classrooms watching the launch on school TV sets…it was a highly acclaimed day in schools because New Hampshire teacher, Christa McAullife was one of those on board. She had trained and carefully prepared for this and was going to be the spokesperson to educational institutions after the flight. Ronald Reagan was president….if I recall it right, he was at the launch along with a huge crowds of folks watching it “live” including McAuliffe’s parents.
I was at school…..being the school librarian that day as I had been for the past 6 years. I walked into the main school office on some errand and the 3 in the office looked stunned and ashen. They were the ones who told me what had just happened…heard it on radio. We did not have TVs in every classroom at that time and I suspect the classes were listening on the radio. It was one of those days you never forget…like the JFK assassination….9-11-01 attacks on the United States, and more recent events like Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake. We do not forget such things and years later we can recall small things about those fateful days.
Now it is a whole nation exploding…Egypt is burning, according to news reports and who knows what this will mean? There are so many articles on line this morning I have only browsed a few but one I read in the Sydney, Australia major newspaper is grim; it appears that our President and his cabinet are in throes of paralysis…Secretary of State Clinton and VP Joe Biden made pronouncements about Egypt’s continuing “stability” and Mubarik NOT being a dictator! It is incredible; it is like deja vu..being able to return to ancient events like the burning of Rome by the crazed emperor,Nero. It is going to have huge implications in the entire Middle East. And I suppose our governent will continue to write out that monthly check for a cool 2 million to the Egyptian government.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE: I missed one of the important gods in John Louis Anderson’s chapters. I missed our special god in this area…INCLEMENT, the God of School Closings. This is what John Louis says about Inclement whose picture in the book shows a frantic Scandinavian man in an old stormcoat (ala the 1950′s) with a matching stormcoat hat with ear flappers. He is also wearing 4-buckles and snowshoes as he holds and reads a 4 foot long computer printout of school closings:

“The best known god to Scandinavians is Inclement. Often the only things people on the coasts or in foreign countries know about Minnesota is that we’ve got really awful weather. What they don’t know is why we stay here.” {this has changed since Anderson wrote the book—roughly half to two-thirds of us flee to places called Texas, Arizona and Florida,} We stay because we want to be around in March. At a time when everyone else in the country is flying kites, we are having the snowiest month of the year. The radio stations stop announcing which schools are closed and just anounce the ones that are open….Old Timers contend that nature’s rhythms have been disrupted by the girls’ state basketball tournament. Not knowing which week to deliver its big blizzard, it now blizzards during both the boys’ and girls’ state basketball tournaments.”

It looks pretty nice today; it is still warm and after several weeks of self-imposed exile and hibernation, I think I am going to get my birthday present today. I get to pick out a new pair of walking shoes ( my fondest wish right now).
There should be yet another god or goddess in new Scandinavian panoply…..the God/Goddess of Extremely Practical Gifts” I seems like a lot of us major in that. No Victoria’s Secret “fluff” and nonesense for us!!! Our menwouldn’t be caught dead in a “Victoria’s Secret” store anyway!

After reviewing the humorous book by John Louis Anderson (see “Getting reaquainted: John Louis Anderson” Jan 25 blog)
I kept thinking about that new Scandinavian goddess of egg coffee…Varshogoo…which is what it sounds like when Norwegians ask you to sit down and come in and enjoy yourself…varshogoo…..”be so good”.
Well, the more I thought about the taste of egg coffee the more I wanted to taste it again, but I lacked the enamel coffee pot that seems so necessary to the making of egg coffee. I once tried making it by putting the egg and coffee mixture into my coffee maker basket and it was a huge mess and a total disaster. I do not ever want to have to clean up that mess again! I ended up using one of my cooking pots but I am determined to find an enamel coffee pot—without a basket in it.

So I googled “making egg coffee”…as if I did not know how to do it already. I had watched Juanita Hanson, of my parents’ generation, make the egg coffee for “church doings” for many years. In fact, “Nita” was always called upon to make egg coffee for ANY doing…study club meetings, PTA, circle gatherings, funerals, weddings….ANYTHING that needed that good egg coffee. There were huge white enamel pots of boiling water involved, bowls of coffee and whole egg mixed together… dumping the mix into the boiling water and a waiting period for it “to settle”. Oh it tasted so good…always!!

I did learn a new thing when I looked it up and got a hit “making coffee the Norwegian way”. You not only mix raw egg with dry coffee….you also crush the egg shells and plop them into the coffee pot too so they boil along with the coffee/egg mixture. This causes the coffee to become “clear” and says you don’t even have to worry about getting clots of coffee and egg coming out of the pot after the “settling periods”.
They are right! The egg shells did wonders! It was so delicious I feel like going and making another batch right now and putting it into my white coffee thermos/pourer. Mmmmmmmmmm!!!!
You are supposed to wash the eggs well before cracking them open…no left-over chicken nest “detritus” is wanted or needed! I did everything the way the recipe said and now I do not know if I can return to coffee maker coffee.
Thinking of “Nita” and her egg coffee made me remember her oldest daughter’s wedding so long ago…early 1950′s when that family broke all the traditions and served a MEAL after the wedding. It was still held in the old “church parlors” (ie. church basement) But they had a lot more than cake and coffee and tiny fancy sandwiches and pillow mints and salted nuts…they had a real MEAL. I was among the teenage waitresses ( we were not yet called “servers”) at the wedding meal and reception. We all were given little Norwegian caps and vests, a’la bunad styles and little dainty white organdy aprons. I was a 9th grader and in my worst awkward stage. I committed the great faux pas of accidentally pouring some of that good “Nita” egg coffee down a starnger’s overcoat sleeve which was draped over the chair. I got his cup filled but also filled his coat sleeve unbeknownst to him. I did not say a word about it either—-I wonder what he thought when he went home and put his arm down that egg-coffee soaked sleeve.
I was so humiliated I fled to the church kitchen to compose myself before going back to “waitgressing” in the “parlors”.

It is amazing how one word…..egg coffee–can trigger such a memory.
If only they still made “Butternut” coffee!

In a good example of that old adage in the blog title, a Washington D.C. reporter for WUSA9 TV station has kept watch on federal buildings at night for months—even years. She has now compiled her findings of how our federal government spends our tax dollars for their electricity bills…..or spends government money borrowed from the Chinese, who are laughing at us after Mr. Hu’s visit to Washington.(a Chinese pianist performed a Chinese popular melody at a White House Event for Hu that makes fun of the US from an anti-U.S. Chinese film—while President Obama listened..not knowing the wool was being pulled over his eyes..politically. Meanwhile the broadcast to China must have had their people in stitches over what Hu had just pulled off.)
But I digress. Andrea McCarren, the Washington DC reporter has been tracking the lights left on in major federal buildings, at night, after the work day is over and everyone has gone home.
McCarren has observed the lights in large federal buildings burning long after the work day is over. She has tracked the lights left on in the Department of Labor, the Dept. of Commerce, the Dept. of Agriculture, the Dept of Health and Human services as well as the Dept. of Energy (EPA which issues regular warnings to ordinary Americans to “turn off the lights to save energy”. ) The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) leaves it lights on all night.
A visitor from North Dakota spoke to McCarren and said: “Turn the lights off! That’s what I do.”
That is what a lot of us do—we turn off lights that are not necessary and I doubt that most of us leave all our lights on at night in what seems to be the common denominator in Washington D.C. for the huge federal buildings!

McCarren, thorugh the Freedom of Information act, got hold of the electric bills over a period of months for the federal agencies she had been scouting at night for months…even years. The results?
In one month the Dept. of Labor had a bill of ONE MILLION dollars…..that’s right a cool mil. for one month. That was the high end. The lowest bill was for 200 thousand….still a bit steep for the Feds who urge us to conserve electrical energy!
The Dept. of Health and Human Services had a monthly bill of 799,000 dollars; the Dept. of Commerce paid a one month bill of 794,000 dollars.

One man, a former federal employee told McCarren, “I used to work for the federal government—I know they waste tax dollars —do it every day.”

When it is government money you are spending, it doesn’t seem to matter apparently…..this is OUR money in the form of tax dollars although we are so in debt and deficit, the money spent probably does not even exist, except in Chinese banks.

McCarren found out that the Dept. of Energy DOES turn their lights off as soon as the workday is ended. That electric bill for a month was far below the other government agencies she tracked……ONLY 260,000 dollars!!!!

So where does this electrical energy come from? Green sources????? Maybe it is that big atomic energy plant along the banks of the Potomac (HA!) Maybe it is from that huge field of windmills set up along Cape Cod Bay? (wait, wait…that is the one that the late Senator Teddy Kennedy put the kibosh on because he did not want all those big windmills spoiling his view when he and his friends went sailing…he didn’t like the noise they made either (HA HA!)
I bet its from those solar panels on top of the federal buildings!(Hardy Hardy Har Har Har!)
Nope they get the energy from a electric company named Pepco.
I went to the Pepco site but could not learn what powers their energy; there was a lot of talk about efficient meters et.al. but I am assuming they generate their power from coal or natural gas. So much for being Green.

Next time you turn off your lights in rooms are not using….every time you turn your thermostat down….. every time you put on extra layers of clothing inside your home…..think of our Federal buildings in Washington DC where the people who work there tell us “Do as we say—Not as we do”.

I am a news junkie…mostly from reading but I do watch some cable news nets. as well. I have noticed for some time that the women who deliver the news during the 7/24 broadcasts exhibit features that are remarkably the same…..they are mostly blond thanks to skillful beauty salon visits I suspect. They all have very long hair which is often arranged to hang over their shoulders. The hairstyle currently features long “southern-belle” style curls that hang down over the shoulders as well.
The most striking current feature is the clothing…apparently, they, or their bosses, who seem to hire only the sexiest looking news women, have decreed that they show some, or quite a bit, of cleavage. They must have to pass a cleavage test before they get hired. Flat-chested females need not apply.
Is this some sort of discrimination in disguise? Do they bring in TSA workers to pat down the applicant?
They also have to have slim, long, shapely legs for the body shots when they are sitting on a high stool talking to their male news partner. Also the wearing of nylon stockings seems to have gone by the wayside and that must require tanning parlor sessions or special leg makeup.
Their other makeup (facial) is skillfully applied; they do not look quite like French Quarter street walkers… but they sometimes come close. The eye shadow and eyeliner are dramatic and their rosy lips are also carefully shined and polished, or so they appear.
Now all of this gorgeous and meticulous care to female anchor women is causing a problem…if you want to talk about retaining what the women are saying news-wise.
The sexy anchor babes have raised viewership…. but the males who are attracted to the babes do not retain much of what they are hearing. Female viewers on the other hand, DO retain the news information.
Is this surprising? No,not at all. The 24/7 head honchos (a.k.a CEOs) have merely cashed in on what could be termed “The Womens’ Beach Volleyball Coverage On The Summer Olympics” syndrome.
During prime time coverage of the most recent summer Olympics, all we got was womens’ beach volleyball! Most Olympic watchers are extremely interested in the swimming and the track events…..but from 6 p.m. and on it was womens’ beach volleyball. Again the viewership rose to great heights….and who was watching intently? Men, I suspect.
All these aforementioned factoids are not surprising. Men are visual creatures. Men appreciate shapely young beautiful women—-even the Old Duffers. Some things never change—- a man is a visual creature much attracted to lovely female faces and bodies…especially the female chest area. If “reaching out and touching” someone were allowed, I think there would be a lot of it happening. I wonder what they give the male anchormen to reduce the likelihood of their drooling over their female news partners? What was that stuff they used to pass out to miliary men in days gone by?
One old guy said it well in a story about two 98- year old Veterans sitting in rocking chairs on the porch of the Old Soldier’s Home:

First Old Vet: “Say,Jake, do you remember them pills they used to give us to keep us from chasing the girls?”
Jake: “Yep”
First Old Vet: “Well—–I think they’re startin’ to work!”

All this vital information I am passing on is not made up—I read it this morning online and I have to go back and find it so I can “cite my reference”.
One does not go around accusing men of drooling over beautiful, sexy news anchor women and not hearing what they are saying….. without evidence! **

** “Shock Study: Hot News Anchors distract, prevent men from retaining news” by Laura Donovan, in “Daily Caller” January 26, 2011.
(there is also an AP slideshow titled: “Foreign (reporters) hotties with bodacious bodies”) It was like opening up a center fold.

More sad news today; when I got into reading our local newspaper, I saw the obitutary for my childhood friend and next door neighbor Jerry. He was 70 years old as of this past Christmas Eve. His parents and Jerry moved next door to our family shortly after world war 2. His dad had been a POW in a German camp and came home in poor physical condition; the American POWS had nearly been starved to death. But Jerry’s dad recovered and our two families became fast friends.
Later when a sister was born, she became a good friend of my little sister just like Jerry and I were friends and daily playmates.
I recall so many sweet days when our little gang of neighborhood kids would gather at our swingset to talk or to decide what we would “play” that day.
Sometimes we agreed to play “Tarzan” which meant we would climb up on top of a garden arbor in Jerry’s yard and make it Tarzan’s jungle dwelling. Our imaginations were wildly running all day long. Somedays we played “farm” or “ranch” and my backyard playhouse became our headquarters. At least once or maybe twice a summer we had a “spook house” in Jerry’s playhouse and scared the living daylights out of our visitors..I think we charged a nickel to enter the spook house and on a good day we made enough to go downtown for ice creamcones or candy with our “profits”.
Every day was so much fun—we did not have a lot of toys…but we made our own fun playing our imaginative plays and playing games like “Frying Pan”….”Hide and Seek”—Antie-I-Over ” in which we threw a ball over Jerry’s garage roof.
We also spent days making “rubber guns” out of wooden gun forms. cut up innertubes and a clothes pin for a trigger. One of the worst bee stings I ever got was playing rubber gun wars, when I reached into a thick hedge to retrieve a rubber band and stuck my hand in a bees’ nest.
I can also remember days when Jerry, Harlan, Denny and me pounded caps with hammers we had a lot of bangs and quite a bit of smoke. If we didn’t have caps to pound, we often hammered corn kernels and made “cornmeal”. Such simple fun. But what we loved most was talking to each other; we learned to be good conversationalists everyday we spent together. When we were older, we walked together on hot days to the local lake and spent long afternoons swimming and getting sunburned.
I know when the other friends learn of Jerry’s death they will feel as sad as I do. We were such GOOD friends.
I have not seen Jerry since he left home when he was 22. He moved to Renton, Washington where he worked for Boeing for 46 years. The picture of Jerry with his obituary looked so much like the boy I remember. He has the happiest smile! It makes me feel better to see his familiar smile.
Jerry was one of the kids who got polio before the vaccine was introduced. One terrible fall, in October, there was an outbreak of polio and Jerry got the bulbar kind which put him in an iron lung for several weeks. Thankfully he recovered but he was never as strong has he had been. I remember lying in bed, crying and praying fervently for Jerry’s life and recovery. Thankfully those child-like prayers were answered as I had asked.
I will never forget Jerry—-or my other good friends from childhood.

Dig in folks! I read an Accu-Weather forecast yesterdcay in which chief forecaster, Joe Bastardi (see what I mean by appropriate name?)…says that the rest of February and March will continue to be stormy and cold.
The worst part of the continuing winter weather will affect the area of the nation that runs form “the Mason-Dixon Line” and on up into the eastern states of Pennsylvania, New York and New
England. Midwestern states seem to be southern parts of SD, MN, WI…into Illinois, Indiana,and Ohio.
None of us relishes the thought of a cold February or a snowy stormy March and this continuing into April but according to the knowledgeable Mr. BASTARDi it could happen as per the La Nina weather producer in the Pacific Ocean off South America.
He also says the La Nina might even continue into next year.
Bastardi also says that this winter is going to be the coldest since the 1980s which is not really news to us or others in the far north reaches of our country. Maine had a 50 below reading in the northern part of the state in the past two days.

So hunker down, friends. The groundhog may not even be able to come up from its den on February 2!!!!!

** PS google “Joe Bastardi, forecast, accuweather to read the article cited.