Double-entendres

Flabbergasted.  As first I thought the comment "I'd love to see my meat in your mouth" was a prank.  It wasn't.  Joe Zwillenberg, owner of the Westport Flea Market restaurant just let that piece of sexual harassment fly out of his own mouth.  Are we supposed to infer he was referring to the hamburger patty between two buns he handed to reporter Courtenay DeHoff, or was there another meaning?  Proof once again that women are still second-class citizens in the eyes of a number of men; even if that number is slowly shrinking.

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Don't tell bomb jokes in airports.  That mantra is inculcated into us from the moment we first set foot inside an airport.  It isn't funny and it will get you much more familiar with some law enforcement personnel that you would have wanted to become.  You may even wind up in front of judge, tap dancing away to avoid a protracted stay in the federal government's closest gray bar hotel.

Now we have idiots like the one who shouted "I have Ebola" while riding on an L. A. Metro bus, wreaking havoc.  Taxpayers will be out thousands of dollars for the required hazmat scrubbing down of the bus, as well as the three weeks the driver will spend in isolation while receiving his full salary.

If they catch this guy, not only should he be prosecuted for a "terrorist threat" but he should also have to foot the bill his foolishness spawned.

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It wasn't an unreasonable request.  Army First Sergeant Albert Marle was flying on a U. S. Airways flight and he asked the flight attendant if he could hang up his dress blue uniform so it wouldn't wrinkle.  The Army ranger was taken aback a bit by the rude response he received.  Several passengers flying in first class who heard what happened offered to trade seats with First Sgt Marle so he could hang his uniform, but he declined.  One of the passengers in first class took action and hung the uniform himself.

The airline has now apologized of course, but the public relations black eye will last for some time.  The flight attendant was quoting an airline policy and the slippery slope argument about making one exception opening the door for many more is a consideration.

But when we're talking about the men and women who volunteer to serve our nation, willing to go wherever and whenever; often risking their lives in the process, an exception should be made.  If it's that big a problem for U. S. Airways, I'm sure military personnel can find other airlines to patronize.

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Norman Lear is still going strong at the age of 92.  He's written an autobiography Even This I Got To Experience and he speaks very fondly of the amazing cast he assembled for his biggest hit "All In The Family." 

Katie Couric landed an interview with the sitcom genius for her Yahoo gig and it's very informative and entertaining.

I'm a big fan of his.  He may be a bit of a curmudgeon if you don't see things his way, but he remains an amazing talent and person.

* * *

Random Ponderings:

Social media has really altered the landscape, when a person can ask a rookie pitcher for tickets to a playoff game on Twitter, and get them.  Dream come true.  Kudos to Royals' relief pitcher Brandon Finnegan for making a "broke fan's" dream come true.

Who would spend $175,000 for a Louis Vuitton punching bag and then actually hit it?

  

You'd think with a multi-million dollar contract in his pocket, Dallas Cowboys running back Joseph Randle wouldn't need to shoplift cologne and underwear from a Dillards.

That someone found a Black Lotus card for the game Magic: The Gathering, worth an estimated $30,000 isn't what has me scratching my head.  That any game card would be worth that much isn't it either.  That people would watch the opening of a 20 year old deck of cards, live on the Web, does have me pondering.

In the town of Orania, South Africa, apartheid is still alive and well.  1,000 Afrikaners live there and blacks are not welcome.  How can this be?  The residents claim they are preserving their cultural heritage.

If you spend $20,000 for a purse and it winds up smelling bad due to poorly tanned leather, you'd think they'd just replace it rather than making you wait while it's shipped to Paris to be repaired.

The Democratic strategists who decided to stop spending money on the campaign of Alison Lundergan Grimes to unseat incumbent Senator Mitch McConnell in Kentucky are making a mistake.

How would you feel, if you and your wife were playing Family Feud and when your wife has to buzz in and answer this question:  "100 married women were surveyed and asked what one part would they change on their husband's body" - and the wife fumbles for an answer before blurting out "his penis?"  I think he faked not being humiliated quite well.

I wouldn't be opposed to a ban on travel to and from the West African countries where the Ebola pandemic is raging.  Not if the rest of the world would then pour resources into the area to wipe out this current outbreak of the virus.  But a ban without lots of outside help would be insanely cruel.  The fact it would also be ineffective is also a factor.

October 15th never ceases to amaze me.  Nor does it ever fail to wear me down into utter exhaustion.

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October 18th in History:

320 – Pappus of Alexandria, Greek philosopher, observes an eclipse of the Sun and writes a commentary on The Great Astronomer (Almagest).

614 – King Chlothar II promulgates the Edict of Paris (Edictum Chlotacharii), a sort of Frankish Magna Carta that defend the rights of the Frankish nobles while it excludes Jews from all civil employment in the Frankish Kingdom.

629 – Dagobert I is crowned King of the Franks.

1009 – The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who hacks the Church's foundations down to bedrock.

1016 – The Danes defeat the Saxons in the Battle of Assandun.

1081 – The Normans defeat the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Dyrrhachium.

1210 – Pope Innocent III excommunicates Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor.

1356 – Basel earthquake, the most significant historic seismological event north of the Alps, destroys the town of Basel, Switzerland.

1386 – Opening of the University of Heidelberg.

1540 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto's forces destroy the fortified town of Mabila in present-day Alabama, killing Tuskaloosa.

1599 – Michael the Brave, Prince of Wallachia, defeats the Army of Andrew Báthory in the Battle of  Şelimbăr, leading to the first recorded unification of the Romanian people.

1648 – Boston Shoemakers form first American labor organization.

1748 – Signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the War of the Austrian Succession.

1775 – African-American poet Phillis Wheatley is freed from slavery.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: The Burning of Falmouth (now Portland, Maine) prompts the Continental Congress to establish the Continental Navy.

1779 – American Revolutionary War: The Franco-American Siege of Savannah is lifted.

1797 – Treaty of Campo Formio is signed between France and Austria

1851 – Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale by Richard Bentley of London.

1860 – The Second Opium War finally ends at the Convention of Peking with the ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin, an unequal treaty.

1867 – United States takes possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million. Celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day.

1898 – The United States takes possession of Puerto Rico from Spain.

1912 – First Balkan War: King Peter I of Serbia issues a declaration "To the Serbian People", as his country joins the war.

1914 – The Schoenstatt Movement is founded in Germany.

1921 – The Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic is formed as part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

1922 – The British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation) is founded by a consortium, to establish a nationwide network of radio transmitters to provide a national broadcasting service.

1929 – The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council overrules the Supreme Court of Canada in Edwards v. Canada when it declares that women are considered "Persons" under Canadian law.

1944 – World War II: Soviet Union begins the liberation of Czechoslovakia from Nazi Germany.

1945 – The USSR's nuclear program receives plans for the United States plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

1945 – A group of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, led by Mario Vargas, Marcos Pérez Jiménez and Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, stages a coup d'état against president Isaías Medina Angarita, who is overthrown by the end of the day.

1945 – Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón marries actress Eva "Evita" Duarte.

1954 – Texas Instruments announces the first Transistor radio.

1964 – The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair closes for its first season after a six-month run.

1967 – The Soviet probe Venera 4 reaches Venus and becomes the first spacecraft to measure the atmosphere of another planet.

1968 – The U.S. Olympic Committee suspends Tommie Smith and John Carlos for giving a "Black Power" salute during a victory ceremony at the Mexico City games.

1977 – German Autumn: a set of events revolving around the kidnapping of Hanns Martin Schleyer and the hijacking of a Lufthansa flight by the Red Army Faction (RAF) comes to an end when Schleyer is murdered and various RAF members allegedly commit suicide.

1989 – Peaceful Revolution: Erich Honecker resigns as General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.

1991 – The Supreme Council of Azerbaijan adopts a declaration of independence from the Soviet Union.

2003 – Bolivian gas conflict: Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, is forced to resign and leave Bolivia.

2004 – Myanmar prime minister Khin Nyunt is ousted and placed under house arrest by the State Peace and Development Council on charges of corruption.

2007 – Karachi bombing: A suicide attack on a motorcade carrying former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto kills 139 and wounds 450 more. Bhutto herself is uninjured.

Famous Folk Born on October 18:

Emperor Go-Shirakawa of Japan

Pope Pius II

Ann Putnam, Jr.

Hugo Goetz

Lotte Lenya

Jesse Helms

Chuck Berry

Klaus Kinski





George C. Scott

Keith Jackson

Inger Stevens (tragic suicide)

Dawn Wells

Mike Ditka

Lee Harvey Oswald

Huell Howser

Chris Shays

Joe Morton

Laura Nyro

Joe Egan

Wendy Wasserstein

Mike Antonovich

Pam Dawber

Terry McMillan

Chuck Lorre

Arliss Howard

Joe Egan

David Twohy

Martina Navratilova

Erin Moran (I shudder to think where she is at this moment)

Jean-Claude Van-Damme (that looks painful)

Wynton Marsalis

Ne-Yo

Zac Efron

Bristol Palin (proving the apple doesn't fall far from the tree)