POPCORN

By Jim Szantor

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations 
about the absurdities of contemporary life

• If Starbucks  mogul Howard Schultz  becomes president, who will be the Secretary of Laptop Hoboes?  
• Overheard: "I love Mardi Gras with every bead of my heart."
• Lent:  A period when people try to be virtuous not because they want to but because somebody said they're supposed to.  Six weeks later, normal life resumes.  (As in . . . End Road Work.)
• Morning in America:  Predator priests are at long last being thrown in jail, teenagers are vaping to an alarming degree, and President Trump finished his two-day tour of duty in Vietnam.  (No medal was awarded.)
• Would it be fair to say there is a wall between Donald Trump and the truth?
• I don't know about you, but I'm putting Justin Smollett and Roger Stone in the MFATWR category:  Memorable For All The Wrong Reasons.
• I didn't watch the Academy Awards but probably should have.  I missed what was probably my only lifetime opportunity to see Lady Gaga and Spike Lee on the same stage.   No injuries were reported, and no arrests were made.
• jimjustsaying's Book Title of the Month:  "Lost But Making Good Time," by veteran studio trumpeter Ollie Mitchell.
• Basketball blather:
• Say it isn't so:  That it's the time of year when folks who don't know a jump shot from jicama have to "fill out their brackets."  This was especially hilarious when a woman who picked the teams based on nicknames and uniform colors won our office pool.  
• How much commercial productivity is lost due to this ludicrous exercise? March Madness, indeed.   This "wrong of spring" has gotten way out of hand.  If all the  dilettantes donate their office pool money to charity, the world would be a better place.  But that would be a March Miracle.
• jimjustsaying's Basketball Barb of the Month:  It has been said that the NCAA tournament is played largely by a bunch of juniors and seniors who weren't good enough to jump to the pros.  That's a March Matter of Fact.
• Latin America now has 153.  The U.S. still has the highest number.  Of what?  Answer elsewhere in this blog.
• Overheard:  “I hate to spread rumors, but what else can you do with them?”
• Press Gaffe of the Month:  "An eight-and-a-half-pound daughter came into the world to frighten the home of Mr. and Mrs. Brown.--Greenville (Ohio) Advocate.  ("Still More Press Boners," compiled by Earle Tempel.)
• Director/actor Terry ("Monty Python") Gilliam on sci-fi films:  "They always seem to focus on futuristic technology.  But the world is always a mixture of technologies.  I've got an iPhone, which is more powerful than the computer that put a man on the Moon.  It's extraordinary.  At the same time, we've got  leaky 19th Century plumbing."
• Cut-rate kittens!  (and Another Animal Breed I Didn't Know Existed Until I Saw it Mentioned in a Newspaper Classified Ad):  Tonkinese.  ("Adorable and Gorgeous," Normally $400, Special: $175.)  
• Wait, there's more, as they say:  Another Dog Breed I Didn't Know Existed Until I Saw It Listed in a Newspaper Classified Ad:  Chiweenie,  which, it turns out, is not a purebred dog but a cross between the chihuahua and the dachshund.   
• "I would love to be eaten by animals, because I eat animals , and I'm an animal, and when I die they get to eat me.  That seems only fair."--Mortician/author Caitlin Doughty
• jimjustsaying's Party Ice-Breaker of the Month:  "Nanojuice is an ingestible fluid containing colored nanoparticles, administered to diagnose disorders in the gastro-intestinal tract.  The tiny particles vibrate when pulsed with laser light, creating pressure waves that reveal intestinal activity in real time." 
• jimjustsaying's Newspaper Headline Nickname of the Month:  Itsie.  As in Albert "Itsie" Elmer Krause, Door County Advocate obituary, March 2, 2019.  R.I.P., Mr. Krause.
• You know you're dealing with incompetent fraudsters when their Web site ends with dot.con.
• (Latin vs. U.S. answer:  Billionaires.)
• Today's Latin Lesson: Potest pulsat hostium.  ("Kicking the can down the road.")