Practicing for the Next Depression

With economists talking about the current economic client as the most dangerous since the Great Depression, it’s time to start practicing the skills we will need in case things really go down the tubes. Or perhaps we should say, down the subprime lending institution.

Today’s generation doesn’t have the skills to face a major economic showdown. Heck, they have trouble thinking that sales of the iPod might slack or that there was life before dial up. There’s no way that those under 30, perhaps even those under 55, can understand the realities of the late 1920s and the 1930s. The only possibility of preparing these younger generations for a severe downturn is a rigorous application of traditional educational principles. Therefore, I am proud to introduce “Depression 101,” with both classroom and laboratory sections.

The following outlines the basic curriculum:

Apple Selling. The proper techniques for hawking apples on street corners, including dressing, pricing and the varieties with the best flavor and longest shelf life in each metropolitan area.

Creative Use of Stock Certificates. These pieces of paper do have intrinsic value. They can be used to start a fire for making mulligatawny soup. The more creative will pass the time learning macramé. (A mandatory self-defense course is offered for those signing up for this option.

Hobo Etiquette. It’s easier to beg when you know which household is a good mark and which will slam doors and windows on fingers. Learn how to read and leave signs for others from your new itinerant life.

Public Works Enrollment. Be the first in line when the new job camps enlist. It’s been a long time since you were in camp and slept in a bunkhouse. Learn how to avoid mess hall indigestion and meningitis. Practice looking busy without performing too much physical labor.

Riding the Rails. Passenger traffic may be endangered, but there is still an adequate supply of freight cars to many cities. Skills studied include dodging the bulls and distraction for dogs.

Windows 2008: No, this is not about the latest Microsoft operating system. In this section, students with a financial career will locate the best Wall Street windows for leaping. A modicum of physics is involved to study angles necessary in order to avoid crashing into a ledge one story below and actually hit the street.

It may take most people some time to pass this course. Therefore, the outline of “Depression 102,” will not be available until next year.

A Message from the National Knife Association

Few rights are more precious than the right to carry knives. From the beginning of the Republic until today, nothing has served to keep our defense of freedom sharp, than having a sharp blade on hand.

It has only been in the last few years that we have been able to get our message through to our leaders—that the right to be arms extends beyond guns. And that message is being heard from sea to shining sea as we march forward, blades held high.

Where would America be if Daniel Boone couldn’t skin a bear? Or there were no Bowie knife at the Alamo? After all, after you kill a deer, you still have to gut the thing. You can’t do that with a rifle or shotgun.

Knife fighting breeds character. Anyone can take a shot at a person or an animal 100 feet away with a rifle or handgun. It takes real character and courage for an up-close-and-personal fight with a jackknife or a stiletto.

How many gun carriers are as dashing as “Mack the Knife” or “Zorro, the Guy Blade”? (Knives and swords are cousins, separated largely by length.)

There’s no prouder moment than when a parent gives a child that first blade. Learning to safely handle a knife is one of those rites of passage—and it takes discipline to keep a knife sharp and to keep it in safe place in the home.

Think about how much safer the country would be if people were allowed to carry concealed knives. And there’s no danger a knife will go off by accident on a crowded subway that a stray stroke can kill or wound someone two car lengths away. Would 9/11 have happened if two or three people on one of those airplanes had been packing a shiv?

No, knives are the front line of the defense of freedom. Carrying them is part of our sacred birthright.

Remember: When knives are outlawed, only outlaws with have knives!

Toilet Humor in which the male race is defended and Mysteries Are Explained.

"Why don’t you aim better?"

This question, nay accusation, is an eternal source of conflict between the sexes. That it remains a mystery is because it has not been effectively explained, which in turn is because it’s a topic that doesn’t lend itself well to television interview.

“Well, Jay, I know I spayed the floor, but I tried to explain to my wife how this happened and she didn’t want to hear it.

Few men have sought to paint bathroom walls a faint yellow. But, alas, we are unfairly accused. Women, of course, think it’s a matter of aim, much like aiming a bullet at a target. If you point the barrel at the middle of the target—the projectile will fly true and straight. It won’t, by metaphor, drip all over target and onto the shooting bullet range.

The male anatomy is not so straightforward (most of the time), regardless of the presumptions of women. Things get twisted. What appears to be a sure aim, is perhaps ever-so slightly askew

You could say, it’s like using a garden hose if, now and then, the garden hose shrinks and gets covered with a plastic flap. And suddenly, instead of nourishing your petunias, your whole face is wet, and at the office, you see how long you can wait for the dark wet trail on your pants to dry before you walk back to your desk.

The most deadly accident is the hidden twist—the aim is careful, but, unbeknownst to the proprietor, there is just a slight deviation in the spout, leaving a stream across your wife’s bathroom slippers.

At least this is easier to deal with then the corollary:

“Why didn’t you put the seat down?”

“I don’t know. Why didn’t you put it up?”

The Perils of Viagra: A Brief Lesson

A man was walking in the jungle one day and came upon his friend Tarzan who was sitting on the ground.
Tarzan looked dazed. He had bruises all over his body. He was bleeding from several places and there were healed wounds on his body.
The man said, "Tarzan, what happened? You look like crap."
"I know. It's the Viagra I've been taking."
"Viagra. What the hell does Viagra have to do with this?"
"You know Jane wanted to improve our sex life and got to take the stuff. And it's really been great."
"Yeah, but how did you get so beat up."
"Well, when I go swinging through the jungle and try to land on a tree, I keep coming up about six inches short."

The Microsoft Spelling System

Reforming the spelling of English has been of a dream for 200 years.

After all, it would be nice to do away with the vagaries of vowels and consonants that give us words like though, through, tough, thought, cough and cuff.

The problem is there is no one who can make changes stick. There’s no American academy, the way the French and Spanish have academics who purge their languages of unwanted words, larger of English origin.

But we now one unchallenged authority for making the language more sensible, and that is Microsoft with the spellchecking function of Microsoft Word, the ubiquitous word processing software.

Since people will generally believe what the spell checker tells them, changes can be gradually introduced more frequent upgrades to Word, so that the population does not have to absorb the reforms at once.

In Reformed Word 1.00, we can take care of all those “gh” words that are remnants of what used to be something like the German “ch” in loch. Think of the English daughter with the gh pronounced that way. We can move to tho, throo, tuff, thot and goff, and it would certainly make life easier for all the teens who are busily texting to have spelling that is closer to pronunciation.

Version 1.01 will take care of such elements as the “tion” problem. What sense does it have words like nation, population and sensation, spelled this way when they should be nayshen, populayshen and sensaytion. Naturally, Microsoft had to had the y to the a or most would pronounce them nah-shen, populah-shen and sensah-sen, and that would defeat the intent of reform. This version will also rationalize pronunciation of plurals, making it much easier for non-English speakers to learn the language.

It will be much simpler to have all the “z” sounding plurals spelled with zees. “That would give use pluralz, speekerz, upgraydz and kards. Note that in the last word, this version also eliminates the letter c its pronunciations are taken care of by s and k. Of the q also falls by the wayside for kwik, kwit and kwak.

This frees up two letters to take care of sounds that needs separate symbols. C becomes “ch” as it is in many language, so the place of worship is now spelled curc.

Q can be enlisted in distinguishing between the voiced and unvoiced sounds that both represented by the letters th. For those not trained in the jargon of linguistics, that means the “th” sound in that, these, those and breeth (voiced) and the unvoiced sound in think, thin and thik. Notice how we have reformed the spelling of breathe and thick. Since the voiced sound far less common, q is a good letter. We’ll probably have to invent a new symbol.

In version 1.02, the goal will be to take care of then w letters. This will probably be tricky as large parts of the country pronounce the words as hwear, hwen, hwat and hwayl, while much of the North east says wear, wen, wat and wail.

From Microsoft’s point of view, this can open up new markets since it can reshape the dictionary publishing world as we “no” it. (See how great it will be not to have this nasty “kn” words.

I am not sure I'm ready for applying reform to names. Roburt Wilyum Skot? Not yet.

Izod Nation

The renaming of the former Continental Airlines Arena in the New Jersey Meadowlands as the Izod Center got me thinking about the virtues using public property to raise money to reduce taxes.

What better way to memorialize your community than with places bearing the names of such giants of commerce as Qwest with Qwest Field? Of course, there can be some awkward moments, as the one that led to the renaming of Houston’s Enron Field as Minute Maid Park. But that’s business.

It’s truly a shame that Hubert Humphrey Dome Metrodome in Minneapolis wasn’t renamed the 3M Dome. Hubert Humphrey may have spearheaded the changing attitude about civil rights. But 3M pioneered our ability to leave messages with Post-It notes.

And in a day when the tax burden is too high, it seems to me that we have yet to fully exploit the advertising value of our public facilities and prosperities. Once we do, we will laugh at those days when we simply couldn’t grab that last buck.

Think about it. Marriott’s Statue of Liberty.
“Give me your poor, your tired, yearning to breathe free? If you’re tired, and even if you’re poor, you can breathe freely and relax with our special weekend rates.”

Then there’s Prudential Insurance’s Gettysburg Battlefield.

“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. But before death visits your family, protect your possessions and your loved ones.”

Don’t forget to visit Caterpillar’s Grand Canyon.

“Nature can dig deep. But think how much she could have done with a Caterpillar Wheel-Loader."

PSE&G’s Niagara Falls (so we have to split the money with the Canadians.)—“We keep it running.”

Exxon’s Alamo—“Remember the Alamo. Remember to fill up with Exxon.”

Sears' Valley Forge—“Don’t get left out in the cold. Stay warm with a Sears HomePro Furnace.”

Bank of America’s Sequoia National Forest. “Towering over the others.”

Maybe we can replace the eagle with the Izod Alligator.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

The master looked as his students carefully as they sat, encircling him, looking with rapt attention.

“Today, I will teach you to put your self always in the other’s shoes.

Once, there were six blind men who were walking through town when they came upon an elephant. None of them had met an elephant before and they were quite baffled at what to make of this beast, who for some reason, stood obligingly still while they made their observations.

One felt the tail: ‘It’s like a snake,’ he cried.

Another was hit by one of the animal’s large ears. “No, it’s like a plant leaf.’

And as each felt a part of the elephant, each expressed a different view—a tree trunk, a water spout. And after they animal moved, they grouped together, each giving a different view, each growing more insistent of the rightness of their observation.

“And, so,” said the master, “We can learn a great lesson from this? And what is that lesson.”

Jemu, the youngest raised his hand.

“You have the answer, my son?”

“Yes. When you’re in the market for a new elephant, don’t send a bunch of blind guys to do the shopping.”