Smarter Choice

Okay, we all know the New York Daily News isn't the newspaper for the inteligentsia. Hell, Bar Man reads it. But I thought the people who worked there might be smart.  You have to wonder how they drew the conclusion, from these poll results, that more people would rather be rich than smart or young.



Maybe because Rich was at the top of the list.

I hope the people working at the New York Daily News selected Smart.

Odds And Ends

Just a few random shots to finish up my pictures in Lisbon.  Next week the Mysterious Chinese Woman and I are heading off for a river cruise thorugh Germany with a few days in Berlin and Prague.  Should have more interesting stuff to post about then.

The Spanish Tapas Bar where I went to watch the World Cup games was thinking about expanding their food line to include pizza.  I happened to be there when they were sampling it so I got some and they asked me what I thought.  I was really quite good.  They nailed the crispy crust.

Almost New York Pizza Good


This was a picture that I took of people taking pictures, but I don't think they liked having their picture taken.

Smile For The Camera, Or Not


This was taken in a park not far from our hotel and right behind the subway station that we used all the time.

Another Lovely View


When we went to the beach that one day there was a single airplane doing all kinds of crazy stunts.  Not sure if it was part of a show or if they guy was just out for a joy-ride.

Where's The Barf Bag


Lisbon is kind of like Genoa and Puerto Vallarta in that it is built along a mountain or something and there are a lot of really steep hills and streets.  One way to cope with trams.  Some of them only run a few blocks, just up and down a big hill.

The Local Tram
 

The G-Force Is Terrific


And that pretty much sums up my trip to Lisbon.  A very nice city and one that I wouldn't hesitate to visit again.

And, in the EWWW!! department, I was watching a History Channel program on Napoleon the other day. Did you know that he had leeches applied to his hemorrhoids the night before his defeat at Waterloo?

Egg Delivery System

I just got this email alert from the Washington Post:

News Alert: Massive recall reveals growing vulnerability in egg delivery system

It got me to wonder, hasn't the egg delivery system been pretty much the same all along?

Flashbacks And Running Backs

In Sunday's Gasoline Alley comic strip Skeezix finds an antique radio in the attic and begins to reminisce about old radio shows.  As he does visions of the old characters, Jack Benny, The Shadow, Ma Perkins, The Lone Ranger, Amos N' Andy and, I think, Fibber McGee and Molly float in the background.

Interestingly, Amos N' Andy look just like their television counterparts, but the two characters who portrayed them on the radio were both white.  On the other hand, the guy playing the Lone Ranger on the radio probably wasn't wearing a cowboy hat and a mask.

Showing my age, when I was going to grade-school I used to run home for lunch so I could listen to Ma Perkins every day.  And listening to Inner Sanctum in the evening with my dad was an early treat as well.  Oh, and Bobby Benson and the B Bar B Riders was another favorite.  I had a Bobby Benson alarm clock with little Bobby Benson riding a horse that rocked back and forth as the seconds were ticking off.

Ah, how many miles Bobby must have ridden to get me to where I am today.

Also in Sunday's Daily News, Errol Louis wrote a column about Dr. Laura's outburst on her radio show.  He compared her to others such as Michael Richards, Don Imus and Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder all of whom he said also "blurted out offensive words before a nation."

I take strong exception to Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder being included in this group.  Here is what Snyder said while being video-taped by a reporter for WRC-TV as he was eating lunch in a restaurant:

"The black is a better athlete to begin with because he's been bred to be that way — because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. This goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trading, the owner — the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid."

Now that may have been inappropriate, but it can hardly be considered blurting out offensive words before a nation.  He didn't use any racial epithets, nor was he really saying anything particularly disparaging.  It was WRC who chose to show the video-tape on Martin Luther King's birthday during a piece on blacks' progress in society, making the proverbial mountain out of what was, indeed, a molehill.
 
I think Mr. Louis owes the late Dimetrios Georgios Synodinos, aka Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder, an apology.