2109 TV Mysteries

Was talking to a guy the other day and for some reason the subject of old TV shows came up. And with it the premises of some of them that we were asked to suspend disbelief on. You know, like how it was Gilligan's Island's Howells packed such an enormous amount of fancy clothing for a three hour tour. Or how the Professor on that same show could make just about everything from coconuts except a distress beacon. 

Then there was Leave it to Beaver's Mom. Who always seemed to be able to do housework in a pearl necklace and high heels. I remember being appalled as a child when my friends came over. My own mom actually wore denims. 

Then there was the Courtship of Eddy's Father, one of many sitcoms with a single dad as it's premise. This one with a kid as a matchmaker. Bill Bixby was the bachelor in question. One of his many such roles, from roommate of an illegal alien to metamorphosing monster.

No wonder Eddy's kid had a tough time hooking him up. My favorite role for Bill Bixby was when he played Ken in the Ken Berry story. Or did Ken play Bill...?

TV loved the single dad scenario though. Often with a kindly or crotchety butler/uncle type, in everything from My Three Sons to Family Affair. It made you wonder what happened to all the women. They may have been off experimenting with doing something more fulfilling than wearing pearls and vacuuming. 

Like on the Patty Duke Show. A TV show based on a similar premise as the feature movie The Parent trap, except asking us to believe there can actually be genetically identical cousins. 

Somebody's parent obviously acted single on their own three hour tour...

America, ya gotta love it. 

2108 Rushin'

It's great the little factoids you can pick up with a quick read of the news. Like they talk about the 99% in our country, how wealth disparity is undermining our democracy. I guess it's true because one of the most undemocratic places on the planet is even worse. In Russia, 35% of the entire wealth in the country is owned by just 110  people. Since the population of Russia is now 143 million that means their 99% movement needs to be called the 99.9999214286% movement.

Speaking of the 1%. Wayne Newton (who, coincidentally, many Russian rich guys model their hairdos after) had his boat sink the other day. It was a prime example of how reporting can be affected by the wrong font. Yes, I said font. I heard a news reporter say that Wayne's boat had sunk stem first. "Stem first?" I thought, "What end of the boat is that?" The reporter went on to say the 65-foot boat's bow was sticking up in 45 feet of water. 

Hmm. Maybe he meant stern. Sure enough, in Verdana and other fonts, if you put a lower case r next to a lower case n and you glance at it too quickly you have the lowercase letter m. 

Then your whole news story is sunk. Darn.

Maybe the reporter shouldn't have been rushin'.

Lastly, the American League of Lobbyists has elected to change its name. They were worried that everybody had the misconception that lobbyists are walking around with a pocketful of cash. As opposed to assignable secret offshore bank accounts, I guess. Anyhow, they changed their name to The Association of Government Relations Professionals. 

Much better. Government Relations Professionals. Now it sounds like a high-priced escort service. 

Wonder if they'll entertain rich Russian guys too? 

America, ya gotta love it. 

2107 Nut Detector

Used to be that math was considered a good way of testing for Alzheimer's. But a new way of detecting the disease very early has been discovered. You might call it a Nut Detector. Jennifer Stamps of the University of Florida had the idea, once she noted that a large percentage of mentally affected elderly patients had very little sense of smell, that maybe the loss of smell and Alzheimer's were related.

She found that a good way to detect Alzheimer's very early on was to have them sniff peanut butter. I know, it sounds nuts, but it works. In fact, it sounds like one of those naturopathic remedy things where a taste of a poison that mimics the symptoms of your disease will cure your disease. Afraid you're going a little nuts? Come to my office, let's smell some nuts to find out. 

Here's how it worked. A clinician would hold a tablespoon of peanut butter in front of one nostril, the other one blocked. Then measure with a ruler how close the dollop had to be before it could be detected. They then repeated the process with the other nostril after 90 seconds. Those in the early stages of Alzheimer's had a 10 centimeter difference between left and right nostril. 

If the left was worse, it indicated that the mild cognitive impairment the patient had already would likely develop into Alzheimer's. If the right was worse, some other sort of dementia may be imminent.  

Probably not a good idea to try this one at home, even though we all pretty much have peanut butter and rulers. I tried it and was very disappointed. I'm thinking I must have a cold.

I don't know why I didn't remember that before I took the test.  

America, ya gotta love it.