187 days to go

       The U.S. government wants to see all the correspondence concerning a faulty car part from a major auto company.  The government claims the company has not been truthful with the American people.  Did the company know something was wrong before the cars were put on the road?  Did someone know there was something wrong and do nothing before 35 people died?  The American people want answers.

      While we are waiting for the answers from the auto makers, could we get some answers from the drug companies as well?  How many drug companies have chosen to say nothing about  the deaths caused by their products?  How long  have the drug companies known their products cause problems?  Which researchers knew there was a problem and said nothing or, if they did question authority, why was nothing done to correct the problems?

      The above examples are just the tip of a very large iceberg.  As the FDA explains it, the government expects the drug companies to be honest with them and inform the FDA about any problems before they become major concerns.  With so much money, tax dollars and employment at stake, will a couple of deaths really trouble these powerful companies?

     Personally, I think the government would be crazy to fine any of the companies into the next century.  Congress is going to convene several committees which will find that someone knew something but that someone was  silenced or paid off to say nothing.  With so much at stake, a couple of deaths will be  considered the cost of doing business.  Someone's head will roll and they will be fired.  That someone will go into hiding for a year and come out with a new book about corruption in the business world. 

      Congress can threaten big companies all they want.  But in the end, each and every congressman knows what the economy would be without the big companies.  And without the big companies, there would be no political contributions.

    So guess who loses?

  
  

188 days to go

     Does anyone know where I can purchase a portable narrow beam electromagnetic force generator?   I just need a small one, nothing special, but a generator which will run off my car battery without running it down. I'll mount it on the dash in place of the GPS which I don't want or need.  I can get lost on my own and I don't require any help.
    About now you are asking yourself, 'What does he want with a electromagnetic force generator?' And my answer would be very simple, "I want to put a stop to the individuals who stand on their horns because they are behind me and don't see the pothole big enough to swallow an armored truck."
     During the last couple of days we have not had just a little snow which merely kisses the cars.  The Washington Area has had more snow than many northern states. And the flakes which have not buried the cars are out driving as though there was no snow at all.  Just because there are piles of snow which block the view of everyone, there always is someone who thinks they are the only one driving on the road. These individuals tailgate, honk, speed, try to hog the road, drive with one hand while balancing their checkbook and their laptop.
      "Attention all persons of interest, your time has come. No longer will you act like morons. Actually you are welcome to be an idiot.  But realize that if I see you drive like you own the road, I will just flip the switch and stop your car, dead in its tracks.  I hope you're wearing your seat belts because when your car or SUV stops, you're body will still be traveling the speed of your car.  Peeling bodies from the inside of the windshield is just messy."
    I have been told that the narrow beam from the generator might not be as narrow as I would like.  What this means is that  when activated, the beam could disrupt a couple of other cars or city blocks.  So in addition to warning the Other Persons on the road, I should mention that if your electricity suddenly goes out, don't blame the electric companies or the tree limbs on the wires, just blame the crazies who will know better after they have crossed Art Garroway.
    This is your final warning!
      
     
     
    
    

189 days to Go

     There is a saying, "You know you are getting older when the music which your kids listen to sounds like noise."  Some of this noise is played so loudly that the speakers in the trunks of cars sound as though they are going to rip apart.  I realize no one asked my opinion  but doesn't anyone care about their hearing anymore?  When  I was young and able to go to concerts, I would come away with a whooshing noise in my ears.  Sometimes the white noise would last until the next day.  Did I care? Well, yes and no.  Yes, I can say that.  I knew that loud noises were not  good for hearing.  But when a friend invites you to a concert, you don't always have the luxury of saying no.
     I grew up in the fifties and sixties.  We could understand what was said when something was sung.  The music was loud but the enucciation was clear. Country music was clear back then and is still clear today.  I can't say that about any other kind of music.  Some singers place their mouth right against the mike as though they don't want any sound to escape. I don't understand Rap music and don't care for it.  Loud and foul is what I think of Rap music.  I'm sure I just have not heard the right artists but cussing  in a song is just plain wrong.
      When the noise which accompanies the "Singing" is composed of a dozen beats which are repeated over and over again, then it is time to find another station.  If these Rap singers are as great as they say they are, then let them put words to the '1812' overture.  And none of the words can relate to killing, stealing, abusing or should be any curse word which has ever been uttered.
     And the Rapper will stand and listen to great music which will be something he probably never heard before.
  

190 Days to Go Until

     Some of my friends and I'm sure relatives call me strange.  I think I have a sense of humor but some of my jokes are only funny to me.  If only my friends could look into my mind, they would understand what goes on between my ears.  Actually, it might not be such a good idea to look into my mind.
     I think someone once said something about taking pleasures in the little things in life.  No, I don't know if someone actually said that but someone should have.  My wife and I have a different definition of a little pleasure.  We just spent over fourteen hundred dollars for a  clothes washer and dryer. I thought it necessary to say clothes washer because someone out there could think that we bought a dish washer.  Actually, we did buy a dish washer but for now I am talking about a clothes washer and clothes dryer. Not a dish washer and a dish dryer.
     Our clothes washer and dryer were in the basement when we bought the house.  We never replaced either in over 11 years.  The clothes dryer did require a belt replacement with a belt which cost thirty dollars and over one hundred and fifty dollars in labor.  In recent years the dryer has been taking longer to dry everything.
    So last week we went to Sears and looked at dryers and washers priced from reasonable to outlandish. Being  Garroways, we settled on the reasonable washer and dryer.  Paying several hundred dollars more for  an appliance painted in black does not  agree with me.  Of course, we had to pay more for a gas dryer. I had measured our old washer and dryer and knew what we could put in the basement.  But when we were standing next to our new appliances in the store, they all looked much smaller.  But having them in the basement now, they are not that much smaller.  The digital display  is easier to see and there are more selections for cleaning and drying the clothes.
     The front loading washer is so quiet that  I had to stand in front of it and watch it spin to make sure it was actually working. And I stood watching the washer drum spin and I smiled. The towels dried in less than 30 minutes and I smiled.
     Sometimes it is the little things(like a new washer and dryer which set us back over fourteen hundred big ones) that make me smile.  By the way, if you need to call me on Saturday mornings, I'll be doing the laundry because it gives me so much pleasure.
   

191 Days to Go

     I consider myself  fairly open minded.   Granted I have not been the best to accept new fangled things, like computers and telephone answering devices. That being said I have to draw the line when it comes to multitasking.  I am not very good at multitasking and I frown on anyone  who tries to do more than just drive their car, truck, bicycle, moped or roller skates.
     This morning while I was driving to work, I encountered two people who were more involved in texting  and eating than they were in driving.  I saw a woman eating something from a plastic cup with a plastic spoon as she drove with her elbows.  Her car was easing its way into my lane so I had to I give her more room.  As she passed me, a truck found me in another lane.  Perhaps this was not the day to drive to work, I thought.  The truck driver was texting but at least his hands were somewhere on the wheel.   He was looking down more than he was looking forward or to the sides and he was not, from where I sat, aware that he was getting quite close to pushing me into the next lane.  My concern was that there was no lane next to me, so I slowed my speed so he could text ahead of me.
    As I was hoping that this type of encounters were over, a car decided to turn right into my lane.  If  I  had not been right next to the car, he could have eased in and I would not be writing this blog. I had no way of seeing if he had put on his right turn signal.  Thinking about it now, I must have been in his blind spot.  I was the blind spot.  In order not  to become one with the car, I eased back on the gas. But then, another car cut in front of me,  followed by four more cars.  At least I had the last laugh as I saw the parking lot of cars  awaiting those cars which had just cut across my bow.
     Too many people are trying to do too many other things including driving when they should just be driving.  The list of behind the wheel activities is almost endless: reading a book or map, drinking coffee or sodas, texting, knitting, putting on eye liner, yelling at the kids in the back seat, using the laptop, eating a sandwich, putting on lipstick, cutting out coupons, and balancing a checkbook.
      Please just drive. Leave multitasking to your work place.  And I promise to reduce my  limited multitasking in my car.  Can you promise the same?

192 Days to Go

     In response to  my last blog I received several comments about peanut butter. Just to set the story straight, we eat the reduced fat peanut butter. I'm not 100 percent sure but I think that reducing the fat in any food has a tendency of lowering the taste.  And if the food is not as tasty, people like myself will not eat as much at one setting, however.  My theory is okay for peanut butter.  But when it comes to something like  a reduced fat triple chocolate cake with whipped double chocolate icing, I will have to reformulate  my theory.
     As my mother would say if she were still alive, there is always time for something chocolate.  She loved chocolate although  chocolate covered ants did make her wince a little.  I don't think I made this up because I do recall having them while I was growing up in Silver Spring, Maryland, and I was still living at home.  Chocolate could have been the original chicken soup.  Eating chocolate makes most anyone feel better. Researchers have recently discovered that chocolate could very well be another food group.
Want your blood to flow better, eat chocolate. There are traces of minerals which the body can only get from chocolate.  And if you need to lose weight, there is always the chocolate diet.
     But getting back to the idea of reducing fat in food.  When I was a meat eater, the fatter the meat was, the better it tasted.  Adding fat to almost anything will make it taste better.  I don't think that fat added energy drinks will be a big success!  Potatoes chips do not have the same taste without fat.  A triple deck hamburger with heaps of salad dressing and melted cheese with the special sauce always tastes better because it has lots  of fat.  Take away the fat and sales bottom out.  There are some coffee drinks which have a hint of coffee in them but do have more fat and calories than a human should get in a month!
     And you thought that sex was the big seller of products. Would car dealers sell more cars if instead of a cute looking woman in a nothing dress laying across the hood of a car, there was a sizzling 24 ounce steak on a metal plate slowing dripping fat onto the highly polished  finish of the eighty-thousand dollar car?
    All kidding aside, Americans eat too much fat in their diets.  We need to not only watch what we eat but realize that what goes in does deposit itself in our bodies.  Our stomachs and arteries seem to be the places that fat likes to hide in or on.
 
  
  

  

193 days to Go

    At the ripe young age of 59 years and some amount of months, weeks, days and minutes, I find myself trying to eat better. If I had been smarter, I would have been eating better for most of my life. I would have not eaten all the junk food when I was young and sodas when I was older.  I did change the way I ate  when I married my wife.  I was a meat eater and she remembers fondly, the days I would stink(as she recalls) up the kitchen with the wonderful smell of sauteed onions and liver. She tried to convince me of all the benefits of not eating meat and eventually I agreed that killing animals was not a good thing for the animals.  As I read more about how the animals were treated prior to their demise, I understood why people become vegetarians.  I won't go into any of the details of how they are killed but every time I see someone eat a hamburger, I think of  a mean person killing Bambi!
     When we go grocery shopping, I read the nutrition panels on the packages as well as my wife. Last week, some big name doctor who always seems to drop into the right daytime shows said that eating organic peanut butter was better than the PB which is packaged by one of the big name companies. This past Friday we bought some natural peanut butter that had only one ingredient: peanuts. Saturday morning we had toast and peanut butter for breakfast.  We each  had two slices of bread, one slice with a brand name and one with the real peanut butter.  The brand name peanut butter with sugar, corn syrup solids and traces of rapeseed and soybean oil and vitamins and minerals which were removed during the processing but returned  so the big companies could claim that the customer was still getting something slightly nutritious which tasted much better. 
     Organic peanut butter has got to be healthier for almost everyone except the Garroways.  The Garroways gave it a  chance but we have decided that plain old peanut butter with all the added additives is what we are going to eat.
     If I had eaten non doctored peanut butter from the beginning, I might actually tolerate it better. When organic peanut butter tastes as good as mass produced peanut butter, I'll change but until that time, I will just eat my plain old peanut butter right out of the jar.
     I'll just have to eat better with all the other food groups.