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| Makes all of us 50s movie fans wish we had a Vespa, eh? |
Mar 1, 2013
Fat and fingernails
I begin -- weakly but necessarily -- with two disclaimers.
The first part of this report is based wholly on a Fox News item, so a certain little journalistic two-step is required, to wit: I believe I have never before performed such a questionable act, and I pledge not to repeat the offense.
The second part is less immoral but still academically suspect. It is snippet of my personal life which happened prior to the invention of the internet. It can not be documented, hence is outside the realm of scholarly, peer-reviewed history. In other words, you'll just have to trust me on this one, Sidney.
---
Fox jumped on the story of a little Massachusetts school kid whose parents received a letter from his school. The lad failed to study for his Body Mass Index test and was found officially obese which, manifestly, he is not.
The report explained that the local school blamed the silly fat letter on mandate from Mass Bureau of Nutrition, Body Mass, Child Traumatizaton, and Parental Guilt. Both mother and son reacted calmly to the teevee questions, much more so than appropriate. While one rather objects to an elementary kid saying "bull shit," these are the times that try kids' souls, and I, at least, would have forgiven him the vulgarity and applauded his concise expression of absolute truth.
The mother -- who mostly opined that the BMI was not a great metric for determining appropriate weight -- should have said it, of course, like my very own sainted mother almost did long ago.
---
The state sent around a public health nurse to examine all the tykes in the realm, including my fellow kindergarten matriculants at Carpenter school. I passed handily -- clean ears, no head lice, no unnatural suppurations of disgusting bodily fluids.
Except for my fingernails. Mom always trimmed them. (Even in those days the family consensus was that I was not to be trusted with dangerous instruments.) She clipped them in a curve following the natural line of the finger tips. The nurse was horrified. and entered a sharp remark on the take-home health form (cc: school files; state Bureau of Meddling files; and, for all I know, Harry S. Truman.) It said that responsible mothers trimmed nails straight across.
You must understand that my mom's reaction to utter nonsense was nearly always a resigned sigh. "Hell" was not in her vocabulary; "heck" and darn" were suspect. But this one got to her and I recall pretty well: "If she doesn't like the way I cut your fingernails she can just kiss my (pause) A-double-Ess."
Well said, Mom.
The first part of this report is based wholly on a Fox News item, so a certain little journalistic two-step is required, to wit: I believe I have never before performed such a questionable act, and I pledge not to repeat the offense.
The second part is less immoral but still academically suspect. It is snippet of my personal life which happened prior to the invention of the internet. It can not be documented, hence is outside the realm of scholarly, peer-reviewed history. In other words, you'll just have to trust me on this one, Sidney.
---
Fox jumped on the story of a little Massachusetts school kid whose parents received a letter from his school. The lad failed to study for his Body Mass Index test and was found officially obese which, manifestly, he is not.
The report explained that the local school blamed the silly fat letter on mandate from Mass Bureau of Nutrition, Body Mass, Child Traumatizaton, and Parental Guilt. Both mother and son reacted calmly to the teevee questions, much more so than appropriate. While one rather objects to an elementary kid saying "bull shit," these are the times that try kids' souls, and I, at least, would have forgiven him the vulgarity and applauded his concise expression of absolute truth.
The mother -- who mostly opined that the BMI was not a great metric for determining appropriate weight -- should have said it, of course, like my very own sainted mother almost did long ago.
---
The state sent around a public health nurse to examine all the tykes in the realm, including my fellow kindergarten matriculants at Carpenter school. I passed handily -- clean ears, no head lice, no unnatural suppurations of disgusting bodily fluids.
Except for my fingernails. Mom always trimmed them. (Even in those days the family consensus was that I was not to be trusted with dangerous instruments.) She clipped them in a curve following the natural line of the finger tips. The nurse was horrified. and entered a sharp remark on the take-home health form (cc: school files; state Bureau of Meddling files; and, for all I know, Harry S. Truman.) It said that responsible mothers trimmed nails straight across.
You must understand that my mom's reaction to utter nonsense was nearly always a resigned sigh. "Hell" was not in her vocabulary; "heck" and darn" were suspect. But this one got to her and I recall pretty well: "If she doesn't like the way I cut your fingernails she can just kiss my (pause) A-double-Ess."
Well said, Mom.
Feb 28, 2013
Fire a cop; save a life
I've encountered the Iowa Highway Patrol twice in recent years. The first happened as I was on my way home from the 2011 GOP straw poll. Tired in the wee hours, I pulled into an interstate rest area for a nap. A young highway officer woke me with a flashlight tap on a window. He gave me time to collect my thoughts, explained he was responding to a 911 hangup, and wondered if I'd seen anything. "Nothing much, just a couple of stray dogs running around." We chatted a minute or two, and he very politely left with, "Thank you for talking to me."
The next one was less pleasant. Flashing lights invited me to stop and discuss my speed. The veteran IHP cop claimed 70. I stood firm on 69, at most, and (accurately) blamed it on simple inattention, the Hedda Pass excuse. We arrived at a reasonable compromise. He wrote the ticket for 6-10 over rather than the much more expensive 11-OMG over. I departed angry only with myself. The natty officer did what he gets paid to do, levy the speed tax to fatten the Iowa treasury.
The point here is my personal view that most highway patrol guys are not unpleasant people and, in fact, are among our most intelligent and professional Only Ones.
Until, that is, you take a look at their collective behavior as expressed through their union as blared in the headline: Number of state troopers down nearly 100 since 2000.
"Iowa State Troopers Association president Darin Snedden (said). '…Our state needs to increase our trooper numbers by 87.' In 2000, there were 455 troopers on the state payroll. As of February 1st of this year, there were 363 state troopers on the job in Iowa. That’s 92 fewer troopers than there were 13 years ago.
The implication is that motoring Iowans are at greater risk in proportion fewer officers. He wants $13 million to hire about 90 more, but here the Smokey Union butts up against the statistics:
In 2000 -- the base comparison year Mr.Snedden cites -- we had 455 speed cops and 445 traffic deaths.
In 2012 we had 363 cops and 362 fatal crashes.
Hence, using the sort of logic loved by our political class, the more cops, the the more deaths. It's probably just a statistical quirk that the ratio of police manpower reductions to reduced traffic deaths approaches 1:1.
---
Of course my analysis is silly when applied to the issue at hand. All sorts of things affect road deaths, and -- while I doubt it -- perhaps hiring a few more highway enforcers is a wise use of money.
But it does illustrate the mindset of the ruling political class -- "We can say any damned thing we want because the proles are too lazy and stupid to check the numbers. They think math is too hard."
The next one was less pleasant. Flashing lights invited me to stop and discuss my speed. The veteran IHP cop claimed 70. I stood firm on 69, at most, and (accurately) blamed it on simple inattention, the Hedda Pass excuse. We arrived at a reasonable compromise. He wrote the ticket for 6-10 over rather than the much more expensive 11-OMG over. I departed angry only with myself. The natty officer did what he gets paid to do, levy the speed tax to fatten the Iowa treasury.
The point here is my personal view that most highway patrol guys are not unpleasant people and, in fact, are among our most intelligent and professional Only Ones.
Until, that is, you take a look at their collective behavior as expressed through their union as blared in the headline: Number of state troopers down nearly 100 since 2000.
"Iowa State Troopers Association president Darin Snedden (said). '…Our state needs to increase our trooper numbers by 87.' In 2000, there were 455 troopers on the state payroll. As of February 1st of this year, there were 363 state troopers on the job in Iowa. That’s 92 fewer troopers than there were 13 years ago.
The implication is that motoring Iowans are at greater risk in proportion fewer officers. He wants $13 million to hire about 90 more, but here the Smokey Union butts up against the statistics:
In 2000 -- the base comparison year Mr.Snedden cites -- we had 455 speed cops and 445 traffic deaths.
In 2012 we had 363 cops and 362 fatal crashes.
Hence, using the sort of logic loved by our political class, the more cops, the the more deaths. It's probably just a statistical quirk that the ratio of police manpower reductions to reduced traffic deaths approaches 1:1.
---
Of course my analysis is silly when applied to the issue at hand. All sorts of things affect road deaths, and -- while I doubt it -- perhaps hiring a few more highway enforcers is a wise use of money.
But it does illustrate the mindset of the ruling political class -- "We can say any damned thing we want because the proles are too lazy and stupid to check the numbers. They think math is too hard."
Feb 26, 2013
Blog spam
I've trashed a few comments lately, all of them spam. Apparently a few unevolved life forms have doped out a way of evading the Blogger filter. May they choke on their dingleberries.
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