BY JIM SZANTOR
Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life: - Who are all these Kardashians I've been hearing about lately? There's a country called Kardashia? Who knew?!
- Shouldn't the Tea Party really be called the Kool-Aid Party?
- Of course, no one should FORGET about the 9-11 terrorist attacks . . . but we shouldn't have had to wallow in three weeks of over-the-top supersaturation media coverage, either. More people probably die of hunger in Rwanda each day than died on 9-11, but I don't see NBC taking Tom Brokaw out of mothballs over that.
- All those who can read the price of a magazine without a high-powered magnifying glass, raise your hands! (Compared to that print, the stock quotations are giant sized.)
- This spud's for you: U.S. consumption of sweet potatoes has doubled in the last decade, according to the U.S. Sweet Potato Council (SZSEZ's official go-to source for all matters tuber!)
- “Rick Perry becomes the Republican front-runner. Of course they're letting him run in front: He's the one with the gun!”--"The Colbert Report"
- You have to wonder about "foodies." When they're not obsessing about what they're eating, they're obsessing about their next meal, waxing rhapsodic about meals past; that is, when they're not out shopping for special ingredients, cookware gadgets and etc.
- (I actually know such people. Most of them are actually very nice folks. They just got into a fetish rut they either can't or don't want to get out of. I like food, too; I just don't obsess about it to the point of all-consuming fanaticism. As a result, I don't have more chins than the proverbial Chinese phone book. I'm just sayin'.)
- SZSEZ's Stupid Actual Product Warning of the Week: On a child's Superman costume: "Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly."
- If you know the difference between bimonthy and semi-monthly, you are one learned individual!
- "In New York City, one suicide in ten is attributed to lack of storage space."--Judith Stone
- The Home Shopping Network: Another example of an idea that went wrong somewhere between conception and execution.
- Dept. of Wrongminded and Misguided: When a tragedy befalls a school, "counselors will be available."
- I really have my doubts about the wisdom of this, how much it really helps. Kids are resilient; they don't need any academics rubbing their nose in the pathos and peppering them with platitudes. (Kid runs into the house crying, "I never want to see Johnny again!" Ten minutes later? They're playing together like nothing ever happened!)
- Student suicides are at an all-time high, higher even than during World Wars and the Great Depression, when none of these claptrap-spouting "counselors" existed. To hear some of them, you'd think that bullying (deplorable and lamentable as it is) is a recent phenomenon.
- Note to employers: Before you hire someone, look inside the prospective employee's car. It will tell you more about the actual person than the dating-behavior charade that is the official interview process.
- I'm not proud that I can't tie a bowtie, but for some strange reason I'm wary of people who can. (Life's too short to spend time practicing that sort of thing.)
- You're an old-timer if you can remember when you had to take the anti-freeze out of the car in the spring and put new stuff in in the fall.
- Best thing I ever did: Told the car dealer if he wanted the sale he had to make sure there was no dealer sticker on the trunk unless he wanted to pay me a monthly fee. It will work for you too.
- Yet another Stupid Actual Warning Label Seen on an Actual Product: On a Korean kitchen knife: "Warning. Keep out of children."
- Remarkable fact from the Wide World of Unworldly Sports Finance: Taxpayers everywhere are paying down debts on facilities that no longer exist. For example, ESPN reports that residents of King County, Wash., still owe $80 million on the Kingdome, last seen imploiding in 2000.
- More sports: What do Pat Borders, Marquis Grissom, Adam Kennedy, Mike Devereaux, Sterling Hitchcock, Mike Lowell, Eddie Perez, Craig Counsell, Cody Ross and Jeff Suppan have in common?
- Answer: All of these fringe/not-exactly-houshold-name Major League Baseball players were postseason MVPs some time during the last 20 years.
- Newspaper Obituary Headline of the Week: "Juice." As in Kenneth "Juice" Eick, late of Seymour. (Green Bay Press-Gazette obituary, Aug. 9, 2011.) R.I.P., Mr. Eick.
- Twenty-sixth entry in the Wisconsin Town I Didn't Know Existed Until I Saw it Mentioned in a Newspaper Obituary sweepstakes: Glennie, Wis. (R.I.P. Harley Henry Hopp, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Aug. 25, 2011). Previous entries: Athelstane, Walhain, Duck Creek, Breed, Anston, Sobieski, Amberg, Osseo, Angelica, Brazeau, Waukechon, Sugar Camp, Kossuth, Lessor, Kunesh, Pulcifer, Cato, Florence, Greenleaf, Eaton, Poygan, Hofa Park, Hilbert, Hollandtown and Beaufort.
- Today's Latin lesson: Sarcina may videor minor quam plenus due ut subsido of tenor. ("Package may appear less than full due to settling of contents.")
