563 Blog topics, free to a good home

Cryptic notes. What did I plan to write? Must have sounded good at the time. Throw aways. See what you can do. Or check back.

I ran into my "step-sister" Gloria at Panera's. We worked together in 1985 in a program called Ohio STEPS. Great lady.

"The fashion of torn jeans is an insult to all those who must wear clothes with holes in them for lack of better ones. . .No doubt, laborers toil somewhere in the Third World to produce those careful rips--the rich do the poor no favor by wearing rags, even by famous designers." Theodore Dalrymple. I have no idea who this is or what I'd planned to say about it.

TV story about the men and women who drive supply trucks in Iraq. Some like the risks and excitement. Some like feeling a part of something important. One 54 year old black grandmother says she does it for the Iraqi people.

The top 1% of tax payers pay an average rate of 27.25%, and the Kerrys pay 12.4%, and they are billionaires. Kerry's proposed tax rate increases would have the effect of making his wife more wealthy because when tax rates rise, so do the value of tax-exempt bonds, thus increasing the value of Kerrys' portfolio.

A blonde woman wearing a large pin that said "DORK" was giving a tour at Panera's to eight nicely dressed 20-somethings.

An ad for eton shortwave radio said, "Be an informed voter from BBC to NPR, get all the international and domestic news from different angles." Different from what? Certainly not each other.

Live-in Nanny--$27,664/year
Live-out Nanny--$30,000/year

German study published in NEJM shows traffic can bring on health problems.

"The herd of independent minds," describing I think, academe. Ruth Wisse?

Donations from lawyers: Kerry $21,781,718; Edwards $11,491,519. Club for Growth ad.

Flu kills 36,000 and hospitalizes 200,000 each year. How does that compare with HIV/AIDS?

Low carb fad is fading.

Average weight of Americans is up 25 lbs. since 1960.

Jaguar ad in booklet form is rubber cemented into strips in glossy magazines with a page each for: 1. Lust. 2. Greed. 3. Pride. 4. Sloth. 5. Envy. 6. Wrath. 7. Gluttony. I guess sex doesn't sell anymore.

Ad for diamonds: "Your left hand loves candlelight. Your right hand loves the spotlight. Left--commitment. Right--independence. Women of the world, raise your right hand."

Ad for Jenn-Air: "To some, they're just magazines. But to you, they read like romance novels." Shows a wall magazine rack in a stainless steel kitchen with all storage below the counter so you can see the ocean.

Amy Tan's quote about having a brain sounds like it took all the effort of a junior high insult on the playground. And she calls herself a writer?

I didn't know Columbus had a Bible College until the women's dorm was evacuated for carbon monoxide poisoning last week.

Undisconnectibility--internet election addiction. But what an interesting word.
net--from the word for knot
com/con--to bind, with
connect--to join or fasten together
dis--apart
disconnect--to sever a connection
un--not, do the opposite
-ible and -ity--suffixes handy for converting verbs to nouns,
-ibility--overkill suffix for making an adjective into a noun

This week we've had phone calls from Rudy Giuliani, Laura Bush, G.W. Bush, John Glenn and a few unknowns, some still calling election day.

Thirty known STDs are not blocked by condom use.

The Asian Carp can eat 40% of its body weigh in a day and grow to 150 lbs.

T.D. Jakes has marketed his new film "Woman, thou art loosed" through hair dressers because hair stylists talk to a lot of people.