Neither cold rains nor cultural alterations…

 

Today's Tids Issue 4,917

Smiling through drops of rain:

 

Happy Memorial Day everybody. Spend a few silent moments together.

 

The rest of the headline above for Today’s Tids is, “Neither cold rains nor cultural alterations…could keep Americans from honoring the fallen heroes of the wars that saved freedom.

 

With people racing as fast as their little legs will take them to discover anything outside their homes, magazine and newspaper subscriptions will certainly take another hit as they march into the next generation and a slow death. That means that the morning news will be more in-your-face news from people talking too fast on TVs and Podcasts, and who knows what ever kind of torture comes next.

 

In 1883, 12 people among thousands walking on the new bridge were trampled to death based on a “rumor” that the Brooklyn Bridge was collapsing. And they didn’t even have Twitter than. It just shows you that masses of humans acting irrationally on false information isn’t new.

 

If you ever need a jolt of pure human happiness, check out the video of Helio Castroneves celebrating his win yesterday at the Indy 500. No hidden messages, just smiles and joy and simply pure spur of-the-moment rapture. And the last move he made on the track was pretty spectacular too.

 

The Question:

Name all of the women who have driven in the Indy 500. And who was the first one? Bonus: Thomas Jefferson had a great, unrequited love that seemed to haunt him. She was married, he was widowed. What was her name?

 

The Headlines:

--Markets Closed Today; Tomorrow Will Tell If Markets Continue Trend Of Climbing Back Out Of Mid-May Doldrums.

--Summer Fun Expected To Be Costly For Re-emerging America; Gas, Fido and Restaurant Prices Expected To Be Sharply Rinsing Over Next Months.

--China Switches Direction And Allows Up To Three Children Per Family

--Helio Castroneves Wins For 4^th Time At Indy In The Fastest Time Ever; Kyle Larson Wins Coca-Cola 600 In Nascar Annual Memorial Day Race.

--Dems Rallying To Stop Texas New Fair Voting Act.

--Louisiana Coast Still Suffering From Past Year’s Battering’s Bracing For More Hits Again This Year.

--Conservative Leaders In Israel Go After Netanyahu; It Is Expected He Would Be Replaced By Natftali Bennett.

 

The secret to living without high blood pressure and internal aggravation is waking up softly without looking at or hearing and dwelling on news first.

 

Speaking of High Blood Pressure, I just learned that barbecue recipes are seriously differentiated by defined regions, mostly in southern states. There is Carolina, Memphis, Texas, Kansas City, Alabama, Kentucky, Saint Louis and Chicago. Caroline Barbecue is based on pork and hogs. Vinegar and chopped Cole Slaw are mainstay key attributes for Carolina, but South differs from North by the mustard in the sauce. Memphis is famous for dry rubbed sauceless pork shoulder for pulled pork, and ribs, wet (Vintager Plus Tomato base) and dry rubbed. Texas is like Carolina, but it is all about beef in particular, the Brisket rubbed with salt and black pepper. No sauce. Kansas City, the great meat packing city features all meats – beef and pork to lamb, chicken, turkey and sausages. All are rubbed and slow smoked and served with the thick iconic KC sauce – Ketchup, Molasses and Brown sugar. KC BBQ is identified by its burnt ends. The differential for Alabama chicken and pork dishes is the white sauce based on mayo. Kentucky is unique for its BBQ’ed chopped Mutton sandwiches. St. Louis is pork centric and known for a steak which is thinly sliced pork shoulder. But the big argument is St. Louis Ribs versus Baby Back Ribs. Bb’s are from the top of the rids nearer to the tenderloin, and St. Louis the bottom of the rib cage. BB Ribs are more tender but less meaty. SL ribs are meatier, fattier (For great flavor) but require careful cooking for tenderness. The Chicago difference is in the way they are smoked in “so-called aquarium smokers, tempered glass chambers resembling fish tanks.”

 

So, the big question is: Did you fall asleep during this BBQ excursion, or are you hungry? Personally, I’m not BBQ guy, but the intrepid Tids Food Department will sacrifice its own personal gastronomic desires to provide loyal readership good choices. Sometimes we even say nice things about Dems.

 

Amazon will automatically share your internet with neighbors through a nefarious little experimental networking device called “Sidewalk”. Check out your settings for Amazon devices like Echo and Ring for Sidewalk which would be found by going to Alexa app>settings>account settings>”Sidewalk”>disable. You may want to Google it so you understand better what I’m talking about. And, you may want to keep it. But, I’m not.

 

I don’t read sports pages to find out which players are and aren’t wearing masks. But that’s where sports writers seem to be spending a lot of time these days.

 

Now that everybody is celebrating freedom from Covid, when was the last time you heard somebody thanking Trump for getting the vaccine development steamroller going full speed.

 

I remember when something 100 years old was considered to have been around a long time.

 

Rhode Island has always been first, second or third in states with the most Covid tests per capita. Is that because nobody works in RI  and it was something to do.

 

Because I write a lot, people always ask me who my favorite authors are. I don’t read much. And I tend to forget names of authors. I like to write freely without possible outside contamination. Maybe I should read a book on grammar, though.

 

No matter the severity of the weather outside, it always feels better than being inside.

 

The Answer:

Janet Guthrie was first and her best finish was 9^th in 3 tries. Next to enter was as Desire Wilson, but she never qualified. (In 1983 Amber Furst tried to enter but hadn’t enough experience. Lyn St. James did and in 1992 was “Rookie of the Year”. She raced for 7 years and 11^th was her best finish and 6^th her best qualifying position. In 2000 for the first time, 2 women were in the race, James and Sarah Fisher. Sarah qualified for 9 years. Danika Patrick arrived on the scene in 2005. Her best finish was 3rd d, but she made 6 top ten’s. After Patrick, there were five more driveers, none of whom did better than middle of the pack – Milka Duno, Simona de Silvestro, Ana Beatriz Figuereido, Pipa Mann and Katherine Legge. Simona de Silvestro is in this year’s Indy, with technical support from Team Penske. Bonus: Isn’t nice to know that some of our leaders have romantic souls. Jefferson sure did with Maria Cosway. His “Heart to Heart” letter to Cosway in 1786 just after she left London with her husband for an undetermined period of time. became famous. The letter reveals him to have been a lovesick man whose intellect battled with a heart aching for a woman he could not have. He tried to think with his head for the good of both of them but he couldn’t stop writing letters of is dreams of being with her. But, alas, they never got together. When her husband died, she opened a Convent School for Girls in Italy.  The usually self-contained Jefferson acted like a giddy schoolboy with Cosway, “Thomas Jefferson met Maria Cosway in Paris while he was serving as the U.S. minister to France. Cosway was born to English parents in Italy and, by the time she met Jefferson, had become an accomplished painter and musician. She was also married. The two developed a deep friendship and possibly more.”

 

When I play Elgar’s Enigma Variations, I always stop what I am doing and close my eyes to enjoy the beauty of variation #10, “Nimrod”. It just seems to come from the Heart. Today is a day when hearts are sad, but also buoyed by a great love they had known.

 

 

Buy a poppy.

 

Today's Tids Issue 4,916

A flag so proud:

 

They are expecting 117,000 people at the Indy 500 this weekend. It’s tradition. I always listened to it on the radio while trimming back overgrown forsythia. There will also be millions of people standing, heads down, before grave stones. Stones engraved with names of beloved family members who died in the wars that kept America free. Solid, granite stones preserving proud memories of human courage, each with a USA flag waving in the May breezes. Happy Memorial Day, all you heroes of ours. I hope the people in this great country of everything, remember this weekend that all that is so great, all of what we have didn’t come easy. And preserving it could be quite heard it we keep our eyes closed. God bless them all.

 

What’s the difference between a dirty bus stop and a lobster with breast implants? One’s a crusty bus station, and the other is a busty crustacean  

 

Instead of saying something like “How’s the weather?” at cocktail parties and backyard barbecues, the new default tedious conversation starter is now, “Are you still wearing a mask in stores?” 

 

The Question:

Why is the Poppy so symbolic of Memorial Day, Remembrance Day?

 

The Headlines:

--Stocks Up For Third Straight Day; Happy Economic News: Consumer Spending Picks Up, Personal Income Falls Less Than Expected.

--Microsoft Reveals New Attacks Form Russia Hackers.

--Repub Senators Able To Nix Probe Into Capitol Aggression.

--New Yahoo News? YouGov Pll: More Americans Say Violent Crime (49%) Now Bigger Problem Than Covid (32%); Other Concerns – Race Relations (41%), Economy (39%), Political Correctness ((39%).

--San Jose Murderer Was To Have Faced Disciplinary Meeting That Day.

--Coast Guard Says 2 Dead, 10 Missing In Boating Mishap In Florida Keys; Eight Rescued..

 

 

Inflation is everywhere. A reader sends us this latest revelation: “A customer exclaims to a waitress, ‘$29.96 for a club sandwich!!”. She replied calmly, “It’s usually $6.95, but the cost of lumber is so high, the four toothpicks drive up the price.”

 

Have you tried to buy a piece of lumber lately? Building a simple sawhorse costs a fortune.

 

I’m thinking that if Russian attackers have a way of atatcking techno-scientist rich Microsoft, I don’t stand a chance. Ouch! good thing there is nothing valuable n my computer except great memories saved. And my brain serves as backup for them.

 

I hope Wokesville keeps on commenting and condemning because for a so-called wannabee humorist like me, it just keeps in giving. It’s just that it is so sad that humans can be like that.

 

I really don’t like the idea of congress passing a national law that governs local police departments. Or. for that matter, local anything.

 

Maybe this is the weekend when the parades come back to town.

 

States give powers to the Feds like printing money, declaring war, creating treaties, regulating interstate and country commerce, maintaining a militia and Navy, secure for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries, establish rules of naturalization, establish post offices and post roads. Nowhere does it say the Feds have the power to micromanage the individual or the places in which they live.

 

People of the USA should never be identity groupified nor the states be homogenized. Let differences reign.

 

Reading Between the Lines Movie Reviews:

--The Big highly publicized movie Is Cruella, but intelligent observers wonder whether we needed a film about the back story of this notorious villain. The best part of the movie is the acting by a couple of Emma’s, Stone and Thompson. But most will wonder why they are watching it. It’s about an ambitious young woman. Estella. looking for the an edge in the world of high fashion resorts to her evil side. This is my snobby, arrogant critical review. In actuality, people will probably find it interesting if they are fans of 101 Dalmatians.

--If you like Horror movies you should leak Quiet Place; Part II, which is much better than the popular first installment. The Abbott family must now face the terrors of the outside world as they continue their fight for survival in silence. Forced to venture into the unknown, they quickly realize that the creatures that hunt by sound are not the only threats that lurk beyond the sand path.

 

The Answer:

The poppy as a symbol of war casualties started with a poem by Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, who during WWI, saw bright red poppies blooming on the war-torn fields where so many soldiers had lost their lives. He wrote “In Flanders Fields.”:

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

 

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

        In Flanders fields. 

  If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields.

The poem was published in a London magazine and later syndicated to publications in other Allied countries, where it was seen by two women in different countries and who were inspired in different ways. American University of Georgia professor Moïna Michael wrote a poem in response to McCrae’s, titled “We Shall Keep Faith,” in 1918. She also started wearing a red poppy in honor of the troops and came up with the idea of making and selling red poppies to raise money for veterans. Meanwhile, in France, Anna Guérin organized large poppy drives, making and selling poppies to raise money for widows, orphans, and veterans, and to fund France’s post-war restoration efforts. She championed her idea for an “Inter-Allied Poppy Day”.  “If ye break faith with us who die, We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields.”

 

 

How come when the Feds give back to states and towns their resident’s tax money for specific public needs, the Feds assume they can now regulate whoever takes back their own money.

 

I only mention this, because so many great, wonderful, courageous people gave their lives for freedom and independence that should never be compromised.

 

Have a great weekend, E-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y!!