Monday, April 01, 2013

The LuLac Edition #2386, April 1st, 2013

Our “Maybe I’m Amazed” logo. 

MAYBE I’M AMAZED 

MAYBE I’M AMAZED……….that our neighbors to the South, the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs have a game unit installed the men’s room at Coke A Cola Park. Situated above the urinals, the gaming device tracks one’s output presumably giving grades on accuracy. Maybe they were just tired of cleaning up constantly after the bad aims of the male baseball consuming public after a few beers. 
MAYBE I’M AMAZED………that the new Pope, Francis is taking heat for washing the feet of two women on Holy Thursday. It appears that some Vatican insiders are tut tutting about this break in tradition. I embraced the way that Pope Benedict held to the trappings and traditions of the church. I could have even dealt with a return to the Latin Mass. But there is a new day in the Holy See and this new Pope should have the freedom from criticism to break with tradition. Plus, for as long as I can remember, my church allowed the feet of women to be washed on Holy Thursday for years. So this is not an earth shattering break from protocol. But it does tell you that perhaps Francis should watch his back. 
MAYBE I’M AMAZED………that a cat has 32 muscles in each ear. 
MAYBE I’M AMAZED……..that there is a real possibility this year that both the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees will not be in the playoffs this October. That has not happened in at least twenty years. 
MAYBE I’M AMAZED……..that no local weathercasters made mention this past Friday (March the 29th) of the “Easter Snowstorm” of 1970 where we had a foot of snow that day. More than a few people of a certain age remember that day. 
MAYBE I’M AMAZED…….that after a few generations, Santo Volvo is moving out of Lackawanna County and getting absorbed by the Ken Pollock dealerships in Pittston Township. For years the advertising tag line for Santo Volvo was “Ask for me, not my dad” and was heard thousands of times on local radio. The younger Santo told newspapers he sold the dealership because it was a good deal and the franchise would be in good hands. 
MAYBE I’M AMAZED…….that President William McKinley once had a pet parrot that he named “The Washington Post”. Birds also figured into an earlier Presidency, Thomas Jefferson had trained birds that would follow him through the White House as he went from room to room with his daily activities. 
MAYBE I’M AMAZED………that it seemed like only yesterday when Scranton native Gerry Mcnamera played on the Syracuse Championship team. Now, on the brink of going back to the NCAA Championship, McNamera is a coach on Jim Boeheim’s staff. Time flies. 
MAYBE I’M AMAZED……..that there has been no action on Gun Control since Sandy Hook. Even though Americans favor background checks by 90%, and that law enforcement officials are being assassinated at will, there is very little action. Both Democrats and Republicans are both to blame exhibiting so much cowardice that even the Cowardly Lion in Oz would not want to be associated with them. Again, no one will be taking anyone’s guns. This is designed to just make it harder for the nuts to get their hands on the magazines that tear through bodies in seconds. 
MAYBE I’M AMAZED……..that opening day in the Midwest, especially Minnesota has wind chills of 8 degrees. Baseball though has arrived. Yeah. 
MAYBE I’M AMAZED………that the new movie, “42” on the life of the late Jackie Robinson will have no less than 10 supporting characters who will be portraying the ugly racism Robinson had to put up with when he came up in 1047. By the way, Harrison Ford plays Branch Rickey, the Dodgers GM who took a chance and mentored Robinson in his historic first step as a Major Leaguer. 
MAYBE I'M AMAZED.......that on Easter Sunday, Google highlighted the birthday of the late labor leader Ceasar Chavez. Chavez would have been 86. Nothing wrong with that but you think Google might have forgotten the big day? 
MAYBE I'M AMAZED.......that a new menu items at PNC Park this season is a pulled pork pirogie. Love pulled pork, love pirogies, not sure how I feel about combining the two. 
 
John Bernadino and Emily McLaughlin, cast as Dr. Steve Hardy and Nurse Jesse Brewer on the 10th anniversary of "General Hospital" in 1973. (Photo: Wikipedia)
MAYBE I'M AMAZED.......that 50 years ago today, "General Hospital" aired its first episode. Of all people, my father was the one who told us kids about it the show because one of his favorite ballplayers, John Bernadino was cast in the role of Dr. Steve Hardy. Bernadino played for the old St. Louis Browns. 

15 Comments:

At 6:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

MAYBE I’M AMAZED……..that there has been no action on Gun Control since Sandy Hook.

Why? The tidal wave of emotion has been mollified by reason and logic. We should be glad that people are taking the time to think things through.

Making bad law protects no one. It is not an easy task no matter how much our president sashays around the issue.

 
At 6:14 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yonk!

I can't believe you spelled p-i-e-r-o-g-y wrong!

Write it 100x get it signed by your wife and turn it in to Sr. Shermantank.

BTW: "pulled pork pierogy" is a Frackville euphemism. Don't tell Pittsburgh.

 
At 10:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Berradino was also a Cleveland Indian and appeared in the "Kid From Cleveland" flick in the late 40s. That may have started his acting career.

Pete

 
At 12:29 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oops! I spelled Bernadino wrong!
Dont wanna cross the spelling police.

 
At 7:36 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Far be it form me to defend Mr. Yonki on a point of spelling-my record on this not withstanding herein the Wikipedia entry on the word in question:
Pierogi (Polish pronunciation: [pjɛˈrɔɡʲi]; also spelled perogi, pierogy, perogy, pierógi, pyrohy, pirogi, pyrogie, or pyrogy.

Tolstoy

 
At 10:35 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Im really not amazed that anyone could think that delaying background checks is the right way to write a new law...... I hope 6:08PM is not one of the people in line for a license to carry permit.

 
At 6:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

No 6:08 HAS a carry permit. Why?

Are you caught up in the emotion of tragedy? Were you the kid in high school that wanted to ban Sadie Hawkins dances because no one asked you?

My point was we must take our time and think things through rather than pass something in order to find out how it works. 6:08 now 6:36

 
At 6:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

We all know that guns can cost lives because the media repeat this message endlessly, as if we could not figure it out for ourselves. But even someone who reads newspapers regularly and watches numerous television newscasts may never learn that guns also save lives-- much less see any hard facts comparing how many lives are lost and how many are saved.

But that trade-off is the real issue, not the Second Amendment or the National Rifle Association, which so many in the media obsess about. If guns cost more lives than they save, we can always repeal the Second Amendment. But if guns save more lives than they cost, we need to know that, instead of spending time demonizing the National Rifle Association.

The defensive use of guns is usually either not discussed at all in the media or else is depicted as if it means bullets flying in all directions, like the gunfight at the OK Corral. But most defensive uses of guns do not involve actually pulling the trigger.

If someone comes at you with a knife and you point a gun at him, he is very unlikely to keep coming, and far more likely to head in the other direction, perhaps in some haste, if he has a brain in his head. Only if he is an idiot are you likely to have to pull the trigger. And if he is an idiot with a knife coming after you, you had better have a trigger to pull.

Surveys of American gun owners have found that 4 to 6 percent reported using a gun in self-defense within the previous five years. That is not a very high percentage but, in a country with 300 million people, that works out to hundreds of thousands of defensive uses of guns per year.

Yet we almost never hear about these hundreds of thousands of defensive uses of guns from the media, which will report the killing of a dozen people endlessly around the clock.

The murder of a dozen innocent people is unquestionably a human tragedy. But that is no excuse for reacting blindly by preventing hundreds of thousands of other people from defending themselves against meeting the same fate.

Although most defensive uses of guns do not involve actually shooting, nevertheless the total number of criminals killed by armed private citizens runs into the thousands per year. A gun can also come in handy if a pit bull or some other dangerous animal is after you or your child.

We need to recognize the painful reality that, regardless of what we do or don't do about gun control laws, there will be innocent people killed by guns. We can then look at hard facts in order to decide how we can minimize the number of needless deaths.

 
At 6:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

But that is not the way the issue is presented by many in politics or the media. Every story about an accidental shooting in the home will be repeated again and again, while a thousand stories about lives saved by defensive uses of a gun will never see the light of day in most newspapers or on most television newscasts.

More children may die in bathtub accidents than in shooting accidents, but you are not likely to read that in most newspapers or see it on television newscasts. Some in the media inflate the number of children killed by counting as children the members of criminal teenage gangs who shoot each other in their turf fights.

Many seize upon statistics which show that Britain has stronger gun control laws than the United States and lower murder rates. Yet they ignore other countries with stronger gun control laws than the United States, but which have much higher murder rates, such as Brazil, Russia and Mexico.

Even in the case of Britain, London had a much lower murder rate than New York during the years after New York State's 1911 Sullivan Law imposed very strict gun control, while anyone could buy a shotgun in London with no questions asked in the 1950s.

Today, virtually the entire law-abiding population of Britain is disarmed-- and gun crimes are vastly more common. Gun control laws make crime a safer occupation when victims are unarmed.

(cont)
The gun control crusade today is like the Prohibition crusade 100 years ago. It is a shared zealotry that binds the self-righteous know-it-alls in a warm fellowship of those who see themselves as fighting on the side of the angels against the forces of evil. It is a lofty role that they are not about to give up for anything so mundane as facts-- or even the lives of other people

 
At 8:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Adam Lanza stole his mother's gun. Background checks would not have stopped Sandy Hook from happening. He did not own the gun. What background would prevent ownership of a gun? Someone who takes mild anti-depressants? Anti-anxiety meds? ADHD, which 1 out of 5 boys are diagnosed with?

 
At 8:07 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

8:25

That is the dirty little secret. EVERYONE of these killers was on pharmaceutical psychotropic drugs (the LA cop's pharms have yet to be released). This info is available to anyone with the desire to know.

In fact all you have to do is listen to some of the anti-depressant commercials for the side effect warnings.

Even our esteemed Yonk has not made it a Maybe I'm Amazed blurb.

Its beginning to seem that parents and teachers are trying to medicate childhood as ADD/ADHD.

 
At 7:34 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

anon: 8:07--very good points!!!

There are so many young kids on some sort of prescription drug. Drugs to cure shyness...drugs to cure hyperactivity...drugs basically to alter a natural and harmless personality.
We all recall the rambunctuous kids in our young school days..and the shy ones as well as middle roaders. Most of us were not even allowed to have an asprin let alone a cup of coffee (these things were for adults) but today every parent/teacher wants to make things easier on themselves by bascially drugging their kids/students.
Look at what it has wrought us!!!

 
At 9:33 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't need a gun to carry around with me everywhere I go. Because I'm not a f***ing lunatic.

 
At 10:45 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Teachers do not proscribe medications. They can't medicate their students nor do they want to medicate their students. To suggest this is ludicrous.

 
At 12:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

10:45

I know teachers don't prescribe drugs you moron!

They refer their "behavior" problems to the school shrink or social worker who THEN starts the chain of events that lead to the prescription.

Sheesh...get a clue because your ignorance is damaging.

 

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