Today I’d like to discuss a topic that politicians have used against us for years. The old saying “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer” has been used by the liberal left for decades to influence the vote at every election. The strategy of “Divide and Conquer” remains valid after centuries of misuse around the world. Since I’m neither rich nor poor, I will offer a few tidbits to keep some of those arguments alive.
It’s also true that the “rich” are constantly criticized by almost everyone. Their every move is watched and analyzed, and every problem of the society is blamed on them. Is it unfair? To a certain extent it is. I also believe that there’s plenty of blame to spread around that encompasses every special interest group you can think of. Of course, the rich are their own worst enemy at times and these statements will provide proof of that . . .
Martha Stewart had this to say during an interview. “I have a beautiful weekend house in the Hamptons, but it is not, as it turns out, my summer dream house. It doesn’t have the view of the ocean that I absolutely want. It doesn’t have the rustic wood floors that I absolutely crave. It doesn’t have a little dock to which I can tie my little rowboat. And it doesn’t have the shallow water of a quiet lagoon where I can pick my plants.”
When a reporter asked him to confirm the speculation that he was worth over $1 billion, J. Paul Getty thought for a moment and replied, “Yes, I suppose it’s true, but one billion dollars doesn’t go as far as it used to.”
When an elderly John D. Rockefeller, Sr., learned that members of his family intended to give him an electric cart to aid him in getting around his estate, he told them, ” If you don’t mind, I’d rather have the money.”
Newport spinster Edith Wetmore, who died in 1966, never entered a grocery store until she was over eighty years old, when a friend took her to an A & P. After shopping the aisles, she wheeled her cart to a checkout counter. But Miss Wetmore, whose income was $6000 a day, did not have a cent in her purse so her friend was forced to pay the bill.
What these samples have shown is that when you’ve reached a certain level of wealth your entire outlook on everything changes. I’m not making excuses for the rich, but they see things from quite a different perspective when it comes to living their life. I know if someone dropped a couple of million dollars into my bank account, I’d take a whole different approach to money and how to use it.
Will this ridiculous bickering continue, probably? Apparently, no one has the solution or if they do, they’re not sharing it with anyone. This battle will continue to the end of time when only two people are left. One will have a penny and the other will not. You can be sure that the guy with the penny will almost certainly lord it over the other.
I’ve been writing this blog for more than 10 years and if you’ve read any of my postings you know that I’m a bit pragmatic in my beliefs. I’m not someone who believes in the mystical, superstitious, and nonsensical beliefs that exist with certain groups. Strangely enough there is a large portion of the population that does. I may not believe in these things, but I do read about them with the hope that someone can convince me otherwise.
I was recently reading a book titled The Book of Bizarre Truths. There’s a lot of information in that book concerning “curses” (both good and evil). I found this story interesting, funny, and sports related. Here it is . . .
This is called “Da Billy Goat Curse”. In 1945, William “Billy Goat” Sianis brought his pet goat, Murphy, to Wrigley Field to see the fourth game of the 1945 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Detroit Tigers. Sianis and his goat were later ejected from the game, and Sianis reportedly put a curse on the team that day. After that, the Cubs had legendary bad luck. Over the years, Cubs fans experienced agony in repeated late season collapses when victory seemed imminent. Even those who didn’t consider themselves Cubs fans blamed the curse for the weird and almost comical losses year after year. Finally, in 2016, the Cubs broke the curse, winning the World Series for the first time since 1908.
Again, I don’t believe in curses or blessings but let me tell you a short and bizarre story. Many years ago, after I left the police department I started and ran a private investigation company. One dark and rainy night I met a client in the town of McKees Rocks in Pennsylvania at her home. This Romanian woman hired me to determine who her married lover was seeing on the side. I know it sounds a little weird but if you run a private investigation business “weird” is the operative word. Before she would officially hire me, she sat me in the center of the room on a chair, sprinkled some kind of weird and foul-smelling powder in my hair, all the while chanting quietly to herself in Romanian as she walked in circles around me. She assured me her blessing would guarantee my success and believe it or not she was right. I made the case two nights later, took my check, and got the hell out of there. I still don’t believe in blessings or curses, but it is interesting (and her check cleared as well).
Are you left-handed? I’ve been reading up on left-handedness and right-handedness after watching my two grandsons play in a Little League baseball game. I began wondering why we become one or the other. I was apparently born left-handed, but my father changed all that. When I was about 11 years old, he decided that in order for him to have a lifelong golfing partner he had to teach me how to play golf. Unfortunately, we weren’t a wealthy family, and I was taught to golf using right-handed clubs. After a time, I made the adjustment and moved on with my life. Later in my Little League years I was a pitcher. In one game I actually pitched half of the game right-handed and the second half left-handed. I’ve been ambidextrous ever since.
I decided to look a little further into the history of left-handedness and here’s the result . . .
In ancient Egypt artwork and hieroglyphics, it appears that most Egyptians were right-handed. They portrayed their enemies as left-handed, which can be seen as derogatory.
The ancient Greeks never crossed their left leg over their right, because they believed a person’s sex was determined by their position in the womb with the female, or “lesser sex”, sitting on the left side of the womb.
The Romans also had a bias against left-handedness. Roman customs required that when entering a friend’s home, it should be done placing the right foot forward. Also, Romans should always turn their head to the right when sneezing. The Latin word for left was sinister (meaning evil or ominous), the word for right was dexter (meaning skillful or adroit). Even the word ambidextrous literally means “right-handed with both hands”.
The Anglo-Saxon root for left is lyft, which means “weak”, “broken,” or “worthless”. Riht is for right and means “straight”, “just”, or “erect”.
The Bible is totally biased in favor of right-handed people. Both the Old and New Testaments always refer to “the right hand of God”. There is also a distinction made even in religious art. Jesus and God are nearly always drawn giving blessings with their right hand, and the devil is usually portrayed doing evil with his left.
I feel a bit slighted by all of those old-time religious fanatics and the Bible as well. It seems to me that the Greeks, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, and damn near anyone else had been brainwashed with the idea that left-handedness is evil. Even the Muslims require that you only eat food with the right hand. Just one more reason for me to take anything said by any organized religion as utter and complete nonsense.
LEFTIES ARISE AND PROCLAIM YOUR LEFTINESS TO THE WORLD
Have you ever heard or read a quotation that really grabs you? Those are the ones I try to search out and keep in my archives. They don’t have to come from some great mind like Einstein or Stephen Hawking because many of their quotes don’t do them justice. The list below are a few quotes that grabbed me the first time I read them. Let’s see if they grab you . . .
“What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.” Ellen Burstyn
“The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability he has. Confucius
“Integrity has no need of rules.” Albert Camus
“Everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.” Leo Tolstoy
“Misfortunes one can endure – they come from outside; they are accidents. But to suffer for one’s own faults – ah, there is the sting of life.” Oscar Wilde
“He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet.” Joseph Joubert
“The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross in which to burn.” Laurence J. Peter
“A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience.” Doug Larson
“The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself he becomes wise.” Alden Nowlan
“The older you get, the greater you were.” Lee Grosscup
I’ve been watching the news from Russia and the Ukraine rather closely, as I suspect everyone has. The motivation for the conflict by Putin is something we can only guess at. Of course, he wants power, and he wants to rebuild the USSR and return to his glory days which were the days of his youth. Of course, a lot of his motivation is economic as well but it’s a full-time job struggling with his massive ego. In my opinion he’s done nothing but “shoot himself in the foot” or in more crasser terms “he stepped on his dick”. Not being a professional politician it’s only possible for me to guess at these things. I prefer to look for answers from an expert who knew about wars, up close and personal.
George Washington was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of the Continental Army, Washington led the Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War.
George Washington (1732 – 1799) from a letter to John Bannister, 21 April 1778
“Men may speculate as they will, they may talk of patriotism; they may draw a few examples from ancient story, of great achievements performed by its influence; but whoever builds upon it as a sufficient Basis for conducting a long and (bloody) War will find themselves deceived in the end . . . A great and lasting War can never be supported on this principle alone. It must be aided by a prospect of Interest or some reward. For a time, it may of itself push Men to Action, to bear much, to encounter difficulties; but it will not endure unassisted by Interest.”
I would hate to surprise and shock everyone when I say this loudly for all to hear:
Let me start by saying I hate flying. Over the last 30 years I must’ve flown 500 times while working for a number of companies. It was “white knuckle” all the way for me, every flight, every airline. I had no choice but to fly but I didn’t like it one bit and still don’t. It was not the actual flying that bothered me, only the people flying the plane. I’m too much of a control freak to be comfortable having someone else with my life in their hands and that’s never going to change. Since we’re talking about airplanes today here are a few tidbits about the history of aviation.
Twenty-one of the first twenty-three astronauts who flew on space missions were either an only child or were firstborn sons.
The first aerial photograph was taken from a balloon during the United States Civil War.
After the first moon walk, in 1969, Pan American Airlines began accepting reservations for commercial flights to the moon, dates and time unspecified. More than 80,000 requests poured in immediately.
The first coast-to-coast airplane flight in the United States from New York City to Pasadena, California, by Galbraith P. Rogers in 1911, took 49 days. Obviously, there were many, many stops.
After the Wright brothers had flown four times on that historic day in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, a gust of wind overturned and wrecked their wooden flyer. They stuffed the pieces and fabric coverings into barrels and shipped them back to their bicycle shop in Dayton Ohio.
A German inventor placed an engine on an aircraft in 1900 and flew it successfully, three years before the Wright brothers. The inventor was Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, but the aircraft was not heavier than air. Von Zeppelin had invented the dirigible – the “Zeppelin”.
The first “airmail” letter in the United States was written by President George Washington, who gave it to the Frenchman, John Pierre Blanchard, to carry with him on the first balloon flight in America.
Astronauts circling the earth may get to see 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every day.
The first freight shipped by air from Chicago was loaded under an armed guard. Handled by National Air Transport, in 1927, the item was a “ten gallon” Stetson hat to be delivered to Will Rogers, the popular comedian.
A 31-year-old airplane mechanic named Douglas Corrigan took off in his monoplane from Floyd Bennett Field in New York in July 1938, and supposedly headed towards his home in California. The next day he landed in Ireland, saying, “I guess I flew the wrong way.” He became famous, paraded down Broadway, made a movie, and earned the nickname that stuck with him from then on, “Wrong Way Corrigan”.
Since the weather for the last two weeks has been iffy, I’ve been forced to binge watch a boatload of movies. Some were good, some were bad, and some were just awful. As much as I enjoy the current crop of movies with all of their special effects, I still enjoy going back 40 or 50 years and watching some of the classics. I hope the weather changes soon because truthfully, I’m getting really tired of watching movies. With that thought in mind I decided to offer up some good old movie trivia facts. I hope you find a few things that surprise you.
We all loved that high squeaky voice that Mickey Mouse had in his early movies. The person responsible for that voice is none other than Walt Disney himself.
In a charity event in 1984, Elton John was featured as ‘Mother Goose’. Sir John Gielgud costarred as the Egg Yolk.
In the Muppet Movie, Miss Piggy’s singing voice was dubbed by Johnny Mathis.
In his early years, Dean Martin, boxed under the name Kid Crochet.
In the 1939 film, The Return of Dr. X, one of the zombies was played by Humphrey Bogart.
Jor-el
In the 1931 film Public Enemy starring Jimmy Cagney, the musical theme of the movie was “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles”.
The famous actor John Barrymore had a vulture for a pet that would sit on his knee and hiss.
The beautiful Belgian born Audrey Hepburn changed her name from Edda van Heemstra upon her arrival in Hollywood.
Temperamental star Marlon Brando’s was paid 3.7 million dollars for his brief appearance as Jor-el in the first Superman movie. He also sued the production company and received another 15 million for his share of the box-office receipts.
In the 1920’s film Every Sailor, one of the beautiful and talented chorus girls in the show was Jimmy Cagney.
Do you love going to the dentist like I do? I’ll bet you don’t, because most people would rather do anything than have strangers with their hands in your mouth drilling and poking and prodding and all of the associated fun of dental visits. I spent much more of my life in the dentist’s chair than I ever thought possible starting when I was 14 years old and had most of my front teeth knocked out while playing in a backyard football game. That was back in the day before mouthguards were even something anyone knew about, and it only cost me about six teeth and a lifetime of partial plates and dentist visits. You put forth what effort you must to maintain a reasonable appearance because as we all know bad teeth are not going to attract the opposite sex. Over the centuries there have been some strange superstitions about teeth. Some may be true and others ridiculous and here they are . . .
Don’t trust people with pointed teeth regardless of how charming they are! You never know, vampires traditionally have pointed teeth and it’s best not to take any chances.
People with obvious spaces between their teeth will be lucky, wealthy, and widely traveled. This was a common belief before orthodontists.
People who have well-placed teeth with no gaps have fine singing voices.
People with protruding teeth will live a short life. Remember, these were the days before braces.
Breaking a tooth is a sure sign a friend will die.
Those of you who have teeth with few cavities have a good deal of sexual strength. If you have teeth susceptible to cavities, you are prone to sexual weakness.
It’s bad luck to count the teeth of a baby. But if a baby is born with teeth, he or she will be a famous adult but only if you don’t count them.
It’s bad luck for a man with false teeth to marry a woman with false teeth. The marriage will be unhappy.
The ancients had a number of talismans to avoid a toothache. Split open a nutshell. Dig out the meat but be careful to keep the two halves intact. Put a dead spider in one half and close up the shell. Hang it around your neck on a string and you will never have another toothache.
Always carry a wolf’s tooth with you. You will never get a toothache.
Last but not least, if you cut your fingernails on a Friday, you will not have a toothache for a month.
There you have it, the wisdom of the ages concerning teeth. There’s only one thing I know for certain. If I had all of the money I’ve spent on my teeth, I could’ve bought that Lamborghini that remains on my bucket list.
You mentioned number freaking a few times over the past few years and it still fascinates me. The statistics and information compiled by number for readers boggles the mind or at least my mind. Their calculations are out there a little bit but interesting, nonetheless. Here are a few to tickle your fancy.
Theoretically you would have 4.72 sextillion bacteria in your body within 24 hours of being infection by a bug.
It would take 587 ticks simultaneously sucking to suck a man dry.
The average flow of water over Niagara Falls is 1,585,032 US gallons per second. It would take Niagara Falls 119 years, 293 days, to fill all five of the Great Lakes.
It is estimated that 45,000 Americans are injured by toilets every year. That calculates out to one injury every 18 minutes, 12 seconds.
A recent TV ad for a chain of optometrists claimed we each capture 24 million images with our eyes in a lifetime. Life expectancy in the US is approximately 77 years which calculates out to 101.2 seconds per image over the course of a lifetime.
There are about 109 million US households. The total amount spent by US advertisers every year is about $248 billion, of which the amount spent annually on TV advertisement is about $57 billion. That calculates TV advertising to approximately $522.94 household.
Approximately 152,467 square miles of the United States has been urbanized.
A wireless network across all of urbanized America would cost approximately 1 dollar per week per household. It would cost approximately $22.87 billion to operate such a network.
A golf course uses the same amount of freshwater as a town of 12,000 people.
On average a person will drink 31,996.52 quarts of water in a lifetime. With an average bathtub holding 528.34 quarts of water, you would be able to fill 60.56 bathtubs.
The land area in the United States, excluding lakes, is 3,536,294 square miles. If suddenly and without warning all of America’s convicted prisoners were to escape and disperse themselves equally across the country, each felon would require 1.66 square miles of land.
This is what happens when I have a slow news day and a lack of motivation to post. I’ll throw a few more of number freaking calculations your way as time goes on and I find some that are titillating.
I’ve been offering up quite an assortment of trivia these last few weeks about all sorts of different topics. Today I thought I’d throw some more out there concerning our great country. Odd tidbits of forgotten American history.
The kitchen is the scene of the greatest number of arguments in an American household.
1913 was the first year that motor vehicle registrations surpassed a million. There were 1,258,070 vehicles registered – 1,190,393 of them passenger cars; 67,677 of them were trucks and buses.
In 1960 the citizens of Hot Springs New Mexico voted to rename their town in or honor of a popular radio show. It is now called Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
Patience and Fortitude are the names given to the two lions in front of the New York Public Library thanks to Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
The average American motorist spends approximately 6 months of his or her life waiting for red lights to turn green.
The clock on the reverse side of the $100 bill shows Independence Hall. Time on the hall clock is 4:10.
The state of Arkansas has towns named Athens, Carthage, Damascus, Egypt, England, Formosa, Hamburg, Havana, Holland, Jerusalem, London, Manila, Melbourne, Oxford, Palestine, Paris, Scotland, and Stuttgart.
The first Gallup poll was taken by George Gallup in a survey to find the prettiest girl on campus at the University of Iowa, where he was editor of the student newspaper in the early 1920s. Gallup ended up marrying the winner, Ophelia Smith.
Mount Katahdin in Maine has the unique distinction of being the first spot in the United States to be touched by the rays of the rising Sun.
The New York City weather forecast on the day of the Great Blizzard of 1888 was “Clearing and colder, proceeded by light snow.” The city was hit with 20.9 inches of snow and a temperature of -6°F.
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