by admin | Mar 27, 2010 |
About sixteen million of our fellow citizens served in the armed forces during WWII. To put that number in perspective, in 1940 the population of the United States was slightly over one hundred thirty two million. My long division is not so hot, but my now antiquated HP12C which never fails me calculates that 12% (give or take) of our total population wore the uniform and served in our defense. Of those serving 416,000 died during the course of hostilities. I’m sure that many others died subsequently as a result of injuries suffered during the war, but I don’t have that number. In any case, millions lived on after the war. They married or didn’t, had...
by admin | Mar 25, 2010 |
We’re rapidly approaching the time of year when millions of men (and a few women) will be scorching millions of pounds of good beef and pork on any manner of back yard cookers. They will use gas grills, $10 Walmart portables, hibachis, home made drums, kettle grills of varied design, dry smokers, wet smokers, fancy gas grills, not so fancy gas grills, charcoal braziers, and even open fires. They will buy brisket flats, whole briskets, pork loin, pork tenderloin, pork shoulder, pork chops, steak of all sorts, ground beef, weiners, baby back ribs, country ribs, St. Louis ribs, ham, chicken cut up forty different ways, and even fish and assorted sea foods. ...
by admin | Feb 22, 2010 |
If you thought you were going to escape the tedium of hearing or reading about my recent “heart episode”…..no such luck. For those of you who don’t already know, I’m now the proud new owner of a new Promus Everolimus Eluting Stent situated about mid stream in my lateral artery descending (LAD) which, in theory, is giving free flow to a stream of fully oxygenated blood through a pipe that was formerly 85% blocked. This makes me a member of a fairly non-exclusive club into which about 1,250,000 members are inducted each year. Although the membership lacks exclusivity, we all share some common characteristics (known in the trade as risk factors). More...
by admin | Dec 18, 2009 |
I was signing some Christmas cards and thinking of the Merry Christmas and Happy New Year that we throw around so lightly at this time of year, and started to wonder what do we really mean when we say Happy New Year. Certainly we don’t mean it as an adjective modifying the noun, because it’s non-sensical to think that something inanimate, such as a new year, can be happy. Everyone knows that only people or puppies can be happy. And I am happy. Flat out. No doubt about it. If you would have asked me, I may have had a hard time defining happiness or even why I am happy, but there you are, I am happy. Having gone this far, however, I decided to go a bit...
