Monthly Archives: June 2008

Look! Up in the Sky!

It’s Dad in his new toy!

Happy Father’s Day to all the papas out there. I say there’s no time like the present to lobby for your 2010 gift. Presenting….

The ICON Aircraft A5 — JetSki to the Skies.

That’s right. For a mere $139,000, you too can take to the blue yonder — and you don’t even need a pilot’s license! Now isn’t that special?

And, according to the Light Sport Aircraft section of the FAA flying rules, you don’t even need a physical to fly one of these babies. All anyone needs in order to take off is 20 hours of training and a driver license.

Yikes.

However, at 18 MPG and flying on either jet fuel or gasoline, Dad better really, really want to fly. With roll-out planned for sometime in 2010, you can start saving money now to buy him this futuristic airplane made to feel and “drive” like a car, right down to the analog controls.

Speaking of futuristic travel, you absolutely have to watch this video. Made by Disney in 1958, it predicts what travel will be like in the “world of tomorrow.”

A couple of the predictions are actually pretty close to what’s happening now and what stands to happen soon. The rest of it’s basically nutty, but watch it — it’s worth the loadtime and you’ll get a kick out of it.

(I especially liked the part where the car drops “Father off at the office, and Mother and son to the shopping center.” Heh.)

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Contest #4 Winner!

More idiots at the party

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You know, I’ve never really gotten into watching auto racing. For that matter, I don’t really love to watch any kind of racing, be it by machines, horses or humans. I’m more of a team-sport fan.

In fact, I’m ashamed to admit I’ve always held a somewhat unfair, stereotypical prejudice against NASCAR. For many years, it brought to my mind images of mullet-wearing rednecks swilling Budweiser, spittin’ and chewin’ around the TV set, situated beneath a huge Confederate flag serving as drapery for the picture win-da, with hound dogs under the porch and about six cars littering the front yard in various stages of decomposition.

So you can certainly imagine my sarcasmo surprise when I read this morning that NASCAR suspended two “officials” indefinitely, pending an investigation. Seems that another NASCAR employee — a Mauricia Grant — filed a $225 million lawsuit…

…alleging 23 specific incidents of sexual harassment and 34 specific incidents of racial and gender discrimination during her time as a technical inspector for NASCAR’s second-tier Nationwide Series.” (espn.com)

Ok, that does no favors for the NASCAR stereotype, especially when the racial slurs against this black woman referred to her as a “nappy-headed Mo” working on “colored people time.” Of course the defendants are firing back at the allegations, saying she was a “willing participant” in the shenanigans.

Do you find it odd that one of the defendants happens to be named David Duke? Bizarre. There’s a name for that kind of coincidence. I just can’t think of it.

I’m reading some wild blog reactions. Take this one, from blackvoices.com:

I am a (white [female]) media member, and was invited behind the scenes to attend one of the races last year. I brought a gorgeous black friend as my guest for the day, and she wasn’t openly harassed, but she was basically ignored. Then I was grabbed by one of the drivers, who thought it was totally funny until I threatened to report the incident to his sponsor, and only then did I finally get an apology. Every NASCAR fan I told the story to afterward said, ‘What do you expect? It’s NASCAR!’ Needless to say, I never accepted another race invite, and then I came across research about the ‘sport’s’ horrible environmental record, and I felt even more strongly about not supporting this organization. I cannot understand how anyone who is female, black, or who cares about the environment can support NASCAR, given their appalling record on all these issues. And the best way to get any change is to complain to the sponsors…obviously doing the right thing is not enough for NASCAR to change, but maybe hitting their bottom line will be a wake-up call.”

Yowza.

Well, no matter. Money will be paid, hushing will take place, and it’ll have been a tempest in a teapot. Someone on some blog this morning said that “NA$CAR is not a sport. It’s a business.” Well they’re in good company. They can sit down next to the $NBA$, the $NFL$, and $MLB$. The hubris and utter excess of these organizations must surely someday bring about their undoing.

Or not.

TTFN.

FO.

PS – Nobody’s won the contest yet. Here’s a hint: what was the theme of yesterday’s post?

J. H. Kellogg – the flake of the family

3 Replies

RtB Contest #4!

Big fat ol’ Hershey bar (either in person or through the mail) goes to the winner! Ready?

Who is this?

As usual, sorry Mavis…you ain’t allowed to participate.

Send your answer by email: ratfink at finkweb . org

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If you’ve ever seen the movie The Road to Wellville (and I’m not sure I’d recommend it; it’s one of the more bizarre films I’ve seen), you know it’s a send-up of the Kellogg family — namely, John Harvey Kellogg and his wife — and their health spa in Battle Creek, Michigan in the early 1900s.

Now if you’re thinking that John was the cereal guy, you’d be partly correct. He experimented with grains, making them into edible breakfast foods for his patients at the spa. Then his brother, Will Keith Kellogg, went to work for John as a bookkeeper — until a huge tiff sent Will packing.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Strange story regarding how Corn Flakes came about…

Dr. John ran the Battle Creek Sanitarium, where he practiced his beliefs that whole grains and other nutritious foods (not meat, however) would make for a better life. So far, so good. When younger brother Will went to work for him, he (Will) began to experiment in the kitchens for a digestible substitute for bread. According to the W. K. Kellogg Foundation website, here’s what happened:

By accident, he let stand [overnight] a batch of boiled wheat. When he returned the next day, the “tempered” wheat had turned into flakes. From this discovery came Corn Flakes…”

Eureka. They eventually substituted corn for the wheat, and a new food was born. The feud started when Will, seeing dollar signs and marketing campaigns, told his older brother that the new flaking process should be kept secret. John, on the other hand, wouldn’t hear of it, and allowed anyone and everyone to wander through the kitchens to watch the cereal being made.

Big mistake.

Why? Because one of the wanderers was a guy named C. W. Post. He was amazed at the process, went off on his own and copied it, and founded the Post Cereal Company, which stood for decades as Kellogg’s main competitor. Yikes.

Will got so steamed that he packed his bags and left his brother’s employ. He later went on to form his own cereal company, and the rest is history. Launching out on his own also gave him the freedom to make the other change his brother would never consent to: putting sugar in the corn flakes recipe.

Surely that idea would never work….

But let’s get back to Johnny.

Being strict Seventh Day Adventists, and adhering to the religion’s ideals about optimum health, John and his wife were vegetarians. No problem there. Whatever gets you through the night. But John took things a bit further. He believed:

The coupling of a man and a woman was “the sewer drain of a healthy body,” and should only be entered into when children were the intended result. He was married to his wife for over forty years, and never once did they….you know.
Enemas cured everything. (That’s all I’m going to say about that.)
Eugenics (controversial movement devoted to creating a better world by improving the human gene pool) was a necessary ingredient to maintain the purity of the American race. Immigrants and non-whites polluted the gene pool. He told the National Conference of Race Betterment in 1915, “The world needs a new aristocracy — a real aristocracy made up of Apollos and Venuses and their fortunate progeny” (New York Times archive)
Intense, invasive hydrotherapy (I’m thinking that’s colonics on steroids, friend) and electric shock did a body good.

That said, he did do some good work, too. His biggest push was for government control of tobacco, which he claimed, in 1922, would bring about “the physiological, pathological, nutritional, eugenic, moral, and economic devastation” of the country. His efforts went all the way to Washington, where anti-tobacco legislation was introduced. Obviously, he was unsuccessful in convincing Congress to outlaw cigarettes.

So anyway…next time you’re munching on your Corn Flakes, Frosted Flakes, Apple Jacks, Special K, All Bran, Frosted Mini Wheats, Froot Loops, Cocoa Krispies, Rice Krispies, or Raisin Bran (the “two scoops of raisins” variety), think of the corny flake who started the whole crazy business.

Fink out (to get some Shredded Wheat).

Schmenglish IV

4 Replies

Why? Why do Americans insist on adding syllables to English words, or twisting around existing syllables? Why do people add letters where there should be no added letters? Whatever happened to checking to see if you’re saying something correctly? Have we become so grammatically careless as a nation that it is now acceptable to simply make up the language as we go along? (Rhetorical, please. I’m afraid I already know the answer.)

Ugh. Anyway.

Here, for your listening and dancing pleasure:

Nasties for Which Folks Should Get Mandatory (Grammar) Jail Time

It’s realtor (two syllables). Not real-a-tor.
Mischievous has THREE syllables: MIS’-chie-vous. Miss Cheevius was your 4th grade teacher, and she did not have a sense of humor or a proclivity for pulling silly pranks.
Someone who builds brick structures for a living (or, as in Adam R’s case, someone belonging to a secret society of satanic axe murderers posing as upstanding pillars of the community) is a mason. Masons practice masonry. May. Son. Ree. Mason-ary is not a word. Embrace that truth.
Your voice box — the organ in your neck that houses your vocal cords — is called your larynx. Lare-inks. Lare-inks. NOT lare-i-nicks. Two syllables, friends. Only two. And watch out for the “ynx” and “nyx” confusion.
Et cetera is a Latin phrase meaning “and other things.” Notice it is two words. Excetera is, well…wrong.
Ku Klux Klan. This clan of idiots reportedly derived their name from the Greek kyklos, meaning “circle.” Notice there is no “L” in the first word, so please resist the uniquely American temptation to add stuff to make it sound cooler. So when you speak of them with repugnance (which you should always do when you speak of them at all), get a clue; don’t say “Klu.”
This is a case of subtracting a syllable, which is equally as offensive as adding one. The word referring to a group or series of elements which are ranked is called a hierarchy. Not high-arky, but higher-arky. Let’s get the height of our arkies straight, shall we?
Interpret. Not in-ter’-pet. There’s an extra “R” in there, sweety.
If you say acrost one more time, I am going to slap you across your face with a trout.
Sandwich, people. It’s sandwich, named after the Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu, who was said to be “an inveterate gambler who ate slices of cold meat between bread at the gaming table during marathon sessions rather than get up for a proper meal” (Online Etymology Dictionary). It’s not samwich or the even more ridiculous sandridge.

So there’s the list for today. Trust me, I got a million of ’em, so the above does not indicate the final Schmenglish post. I just wonder where we went wrong, you know? You never hear of a Mexican or Puerto Rican person butchering Spanish, or a Parisian speaking French all wrong. Maybe it’s because English is such an international language that there are undoubtedly more chances for people to abuse it. But why is it abused so badly in our own country?

I’m all for informal writing. A cursory perusal of this very site will reveal a metric ton of slang. (See?) It’s in the everyday usage department that we seem to not care about falling off the grammar wagon. This is war, friends. Somebody hep me, because lest we forget:

Fink out.

Rockin' the Bourgeoisie

Your friend Rat Fink fires the neurons at random