What! April 13, 2017
By Lisa Baker • 04-13-17
What do households on the $74-billion food stamp program called SNAP, buy at the grocery store? The Chronicle reported findings now show that the number one purchase by SNAP households are soft drinks. My opinion…food stamps should NOT be used to buy junk food or sugary drinks. Sugar leads to obesity and diabetes. That leads to health care. Food stamps should be used for food.
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food – Hippocrates
Former Baptist deacon and Alabama Governor Robert Bentley has now resigned over a sex scandal. Last year he pulled a Clinton and assured everyone that he didn’t have sex with his married female advisor. She resigned. New investigations show that he used his position to intimidate state employees to be quiet about what they knew…and he reportedly misused campaign funds, and more. So, now he says he is guilty of two misdemeanor charges and will step down in exchange for having felony charges dropped. Yawn.
Ford Motor and GM have both been building cars forever. Tesla is the new kid on the block and is now the most valuable US car company on the stock market. That was quick.
United overbooked a flight leaving from Chicago which is not unusual for any airline. Volunteers were recruited to give up their seats in exchange for vouchers. No one wanted to volunteer so United randomly picked individuals to stay behind. One chosen gentleman said he was a doctor and had to get home to see patients and refused to get off. A United security officer literally drug him off the plane, the passenger was hurt in the process AND it was videoed by other passengers. Read the fine print. They are saying that airlines can bump you off a plane if they are overbooked. Hmmm. The United CEO has apologized and promised internal review.
Some day we old folks will use cursive writing as a secret code.
This may not make you laugh, but it may make you smile. April the giraffe is still pregnant in NY. Once the baby arrives, you can enter a naming contest at www.AnimalAdventurePark.com. So, while everyone has been patiently waiting on April, a surprise happened at the Denver Zoo. Kipele gave birth to an unexpected baby boy giraffe named Dobby that weighed just 73-pounds. What makes this pretty special is that zoo officials and keepers didn’t know that Kipele was pregnant. At age 23, she was considered too old to reproduce and was on birth control. The father, Dikembe, just winked when asked how this could have happened.
Every year TIME magazine selects the 25 Best Inventions of the Year. Most of these inventions are just plain fun like the electric toothbrush that is described as being something you would find in an Apple store. It’s called Quip, it comes in plastic or metal (the metal is pretty sexy for a toothbrush) and it has a two-minute timer that vibrates every 30-seconds to remind users to switch brushing positions. And you can sign up for the company to send you a new toothbrush head every three months. It’s cute.
Spanish golfer, Sergio Garcia won the Masters tournament and is now the owner of a brand new green jacket. He was being interviewed on The Today Show and they asked if he would be wearing that jacket in his upcoming wedding and it sounded like it might just be a possibility. And why NOT? He seems like such a humble guy.
Don Rickles died at the age of 90. He spent decades doing standup comedy and late-night talk shows. Did you know that he was the voice of Mr. Potato Head from Toy Story?
John Warren Geils Jr., the founder and lead guitarist for the J. Geils Band, died at his Massachusetts home at age 71.
Uber is getting sued. Supposedly they were using software that showed the longer more expensive route to the riders and shorter cheaper routes to their drivers, resulting in riders that pay more and drivers that make less. That’s not very nice.
Wells Fargo is one of the largest banks in the US. Last year it came out that they had spent years opening fake accounts and credit cards without customers’ permission. This was to meet high sales goals that were set by the bank. The company was fined and now two executives have been told that they must give back millions of dollars in compensation.
HAPPY BIRTHDAYS: Actor Billy Dee Williams is 80. The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Director Frances Ford Coppola is 78. The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola Wine…try the Claret Black Label. Singer John Oates is 69. Football Hall-of–Fame Tony Dorsett is 63. He is suffering from CTE, Chronic Traumatic Ecephalopathy, believed to be the result of his football head injuries. Dame Jane Goodall is 83. Considered to be the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees.
Actress Marsha Mason is 75. The Good-Bye Girl. Singer Wayne Newton is 75. Red Roses for a Blue Lady. Singer Tony Orlando is 73. Actor Alec Baldwin is 59. Actor David Hyde Pierce is 58. Dr. Niles Crane. Comedian Eddie Murphy is 56. Former House Republican Tom Delay is 70. Actress Robin Wright is 51. Princess Bride and Forrest Gump. Actress Patricia Arquette is 49. Ethel Kennedy is 89.
Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman celebrated her 76th birthday. She has a great quote. “Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.”
Actress-singer Doris Day is 95. Until just recently, she believed that she was 2 years younger.
Save the date for Brazosport College Foundation, Stars over Texas Soiree…great food, music and dancing to the sounds of Duck Soup. The proceeds of the Scholarship Soiree benefit the Brazosport College Foundation scholarships. September 8th, 2017 @7pm.
China is now dealing with the worst bird flu outbreak in years. More than 160 people have died and hundreds of others have been infected. Bird flu is a type of virus (H7N9) found in birds. Scientists are worried that this could be a global pandemic similar to the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 that killed somewhere between 30-50 million people across the globe. Healthcare has improved since that time, but so has transportation, making it easier for viruses to cross borders and continents.
Be sure to read Much Ado about Nothing by Jean Ciampi on page 4. It’s what we all think but few are able to put into words and actually describe the relationship with our cellphone companies…I’m hoping that she will write about home telephone, internet and cable companies next. I’m going to ask.
I never met an animal I didn’t like, and I can’t say the same thing about people – Doris Day
– Lisa
