NEWS: SO IMPORTANT IT CAN’T BE IGNORED
Did you see in the news that Oprah is going to do a show about domestic violence? Well, did you see the big news story that Chris Brown was being charged for abuse or something? How about the news item that Jewel had to withdraw from that dancing show because she hurt her ankle? I could go on but you get the idea. Celebrity news, which is pretty much silly and pointless, doesn’t just show up on Entertainment Tonight but also in the New York Times and on all the so called serious news outlets like CNN and Fox. And not only is that stuff silly and pointless it is also usually invasive of the privacy of its subjects.
But we do relish all that gossip. We must relish it because there is so darn much of it and it sells so many newspapers, magazines and television ad spaces. I usually ignore news items of that type. But if it’s a really bizarre or salacious bit of gossip I’ll read it. When I do, I need to look up something about the famous people involved since I don’t usually recognize most of them. My friends and family members are always amazed at the depth of my ignorance of popular culture. Some of the “right wing wacko” radio talk show guys do regular features where they ask regular American folks about issues of the day or the functioning of government. Then they’ll throw in a couple of questions about celebrity gossip. Invariably the average American knows nothing about factual information concerning issues or government. They don’t know the Declaration of Independence from the Constitution. They don’t know who the Speaker of the House is or who their representatives in Congress are. But they know what Paula said to Simon on last night’s show. (I just noticed that if you take the last “a” off those names you have Paul Simon)
Well it’s kind of sad but it’s also kind of pointless for me to worry about it too much. Just about everyone I know personally at least has a balance of knowledge between pop culture and real news. So there’s some hope, I suppose. Besides, with the issues facing us today it’s a lot more interesting and amusing to pay attention to Ryan Seacrest’s hairstyle than it is to try to understand how President Obama’s latest trillion dollar giveaway of money that doesn’t exist is going to help our children and grandchildren in any way at all.
AMAZING INVENTIONS
Since I spend a lot of time at home and a little bit of that time doing housework I’ve come to consider some of the great little inventions of modern life. I’m not talking about the big inventions like the automobile or the computer or the microwave oven. I’m talking about those little products that we use all the time without even thinking about where they came from, who invented them or how they’ve evolved. For that matter there’s always a question in the back of my mind about who even decided that we needed such a product in the first place.
Let’s consider fabric softener. Who was the scientist working in his laboratory that said “American housewives would really like softer and fluffier clothing”? That guy was an absolute genius. Then he and his team (I can’t believe only one person could be involved in such a monumental project) set out to develop fabric softener. Then they went on to come up with the even more amazing “dryer sheets”. Imagine that; a piece of fabric that releases softening agents as the clothes spin around the dryer. I checked Google and Wickipedia and didn’t really come up with much information. I did find a couple of sites to print off some nice cents off coupons though.
Another major invention, at least to my mind, is floor wax. It’s true that after dirt floors were replaced by other surfaces people wanted to protect and enhance them. So at first floors were made from stone, marble being the finest after it was polished. Then wood came into use and it was sanded smooth and then painted or finished with shellac or some other coating. But one day, way back there in history, someone looked down at the floor and said “I wonder what would happen if I rubbed some of this beeswax on that wood floor?” Then over the years new flooring materials were being invented and new kinds of waxes followed right along. Then someone figured out a way to put cleaner and wax together in the same product; another great idea. But now a lot of flooring materials have surfaces that never need waxing so I imagine sales of those products are in decline. However, I suspect that in the near future some scientist somewhere will look at that no-wax floor and think that there might be a way to make even that highly evolved product look better and last longer, and a new era in floor wax will follow.
Finally, we need to pay homage to another great household cleaning product, Brillo, or if you can’t find any Brillo then SOS soap pads will have to do. Combining soap and steel wool at first glance defies logic. But when you’re faced with a sink full of dirty pots and pans the logic is most certainly inspired. Did a soap scientist meet a metallurgist at a bar and just get to talking about their respective fields? Were they a man and a woman? Did their union give birth to Brillo? Many people today have pots and pans with non-stick surfaces both on the inside and the outside. We have a couple of those but we also have several of the regular metal type. My dear wife would probably prefer that we have all of the shiny metal kind because she has an addiction to steel wool impregnated with soap. She feels that a pot or pan is not cleaned properly until it has been vigorously scoured with Brillo. When she’s doing the dishes and a non-stick pan is waiting there I can see her fight the urge to scrub the thing with the steel wool. We actually do have an old non-stick pan that started to lose its surface. So she took her Brillo pad and scrubbed the remaining Teflon, or whatever was on there, until it was all gone. That pan makes excellent fried chicken. She uses those pads until they’re little more than a pile of rusty filings. We have some pots that are forty years old and they shine like new. So I don’t know whether to thank the Brillo or my wife’s attention to thorough cleaning for the long life of our steel pots and pans. All I know is that when the Brillo runs out we get a fresh box in a hurry. With the expansion of non-stick cooking things we may one day be faced with a world without steel wool soap pads. That will be a sad day for my wife but I’m sure she’ll hoard a life time supply before that time arrives.
Have a fine day.
Did you see in the news that Oprah is going to do a show about domestic violence? Well, did you see the big news story that Chris Brown was being charged for abuse or something? How about the news item that Jewel had to withdraw from that dancing show because she hurt her ankle? I could go on but you get the idea. Celebrity news, which is pretty much silly and pointless, doesn’t just show up on Entertainment Tonight but also in the New York Times and on all the so called serious news outlets like CNN and Fox. And not only is that stuff silly and pointless it is also usually invasive of the privacy of its subjects.
But we do relish all that gossip. We must relish it because there is so darn much of it and it sells so many newspapers, magazines and television ad spaces. I usually ignore news items of that type. But if it’s a really bizarre or salacious bit of gossip I’ll read it. When I do, I need to look up something about the famous people involved since I don’t usually recognize most of them. My friends and family members are always amazed at the depth of my ignorance of popular culture. Some of the “right wing wacko” radio talk show guys do regular features where they ask regular American folks about issues of the day or the functioning of government. Then they’ll throw in a couple of questions about celebrity gossip. Invariably the average American knows nothing about factual information concerning issues or government. They don’t know the Declaration of Independence from the Constitution. They don’t know who the Speaker of the House is or who their representatives in Congress are. But they know what Paula said to Simon on last night’s show. (I just noticed that if you take the last “a” off those names you have Paul Simon)
Well it’s kind of sad but it’s also kind of pointless for me to worry about it too much. Just about everyone I know personally at least has a balance of knowledge between pop culture and real news. So there’s some hope, I suppose. Besides, with the issues facing us today it’s a lot more interesting and amusing to pay attention to Ryan Seacrest’s hairstyle than it is to try to understand how President Obama’s latest trillion dollar giveaway of money that doesn’t exist is going to help our children and grandchildren in any way at all.
AMAZING INVENTIONS
Since I spend a lot of time at home and a little bit of that time doing housework I’ve come to consider some of the great little inventions of modern life. I’m not talking about the big inventions like the automobile or the computer or the microwave oven. I’m talking about those little products that we use all the time without even thinking about where they came from, who invented them or how they’ve evolved. For that matter there’s always a question in the back of my mind about who even decided that we needed such a product in the first place.
Let’s consider fabric softener. Who was the scientist working in his laboratory that said “American housewives would really like softer and fluffier clothing”? That guy was an absolute genius. Then he and his team (I can’t believe only one person could be involved in such a monumental project) set out to develop fabric softener. Then they went on to come up with the even more amazing “dryer sheets”. Imagine that; a piece of fabric that releases softening agents as the clothes spin around the dryer. I checked Google and Wickipedia and didn’t really come up with much information. I did find a couple of sites to print off some nice cents off coupons though.
Another major invention, at least to my mind, is floor wax. It’s true that after dirt floors were replaced by other surfaces people wanted to protect and enhance them. So at first floors were made from stone, marble being the finest after it was polished. Then wood came into use and it was sanded smooth and then painted or finished with shellac or some other coating. But one day, way back there in history, someone looked down at the floor and said “I wonder what would happen if I rubbed some of this beeswax on that wood floor?” Then over the years new flooring materials were being invented and new kinds of waxes followed right along. Then someone figured out a way to put cleaner and wax together in the same product; another great idea. But now a lot of flooring materials have surfaces that never need waxing so I imagine sales of those products are in decline. However, I suspect that in the near future some scientist somewhere will look at that no-wax floor and think that there might be a way to make even that highly evolved product look better and last longer, and a new era in floor wax will follow.
Finally, we need to pay homage to another great household cleaning product, Brillo, or if you can’t find any Brillo then SOS soap pads will have to do. Combining soap and steel wool at first glance defies logic. But when you’re faced with a sink full of dirty pots and pans the logic is most certainly inspired. Did a soap scientist meet a metallurgist at a bar and just get to talking about their respective fields? Were they a man and a woman? Did their union give birth to Brillo? Many people today have pots and pans with non-stick surfaces both on the inside and the outside. We have a couple of those but we also have several of the regular metal type. My dear wife would probably prefer that we have all of the shiny metal kind because she has an addiction to steel wool impregnated with soap. She feels that a pot or pan is not cleaned properly until it has been vigorously scoured with Brillo. When she’s doing the dishes and a non-stick pan is waiting there I can see her fight the urge to scrub the thing with the steel wool. We actually do have an old non-stick pan that started to lose its surface. So she took her Brillo pad and scrubbed the remaining Teflon, or whatever was on there, until it was all gone. That pan makes excellent fried chicken. She uses those pads until they’re little more than a pile of rusty filings. We have some pots that are forty years old and they shine like new. So I don’t know whether to thank the Brillo or my wife’s attention to thorough cleaning for the long life of our steel pots and pans. All I know is that when the Brillo runs out we get a fresh box in a hurry. With the expansion of non-stick cooking things we may one day be faced with a world without steel wool soap pads. That will be a sad day for my wife but I’m sure she’ll hoard a life time supply before that time arrives.
Have a fine day.
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